


Playing the Scene

by twinsarein



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dom/sub, Exhibitionism, First Time, M/M, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:31:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinsarein/pseuds/twinsarein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean are disagreeing on the best way to approach their most recent hunt. Something has been killing people inside a club, and it needs to be stopped. The only problem? It's a hardcore gay S&M bar, and they need to go 'native' to catch the killer. Fortunately (or unfortunately for Sam), someone is more than willing to get in on the act. Much to Sam's chagrin, Gabriel also happens to be quite experienced with the club's theme, AND so good at blending in that Sam has to keep reminding himself it's all an act to draw out the target. But then the shit really hits the fan, and it's time to find out where the fickle Archangel's loyalties really lie - with saving his own ass...or with Sam's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the Scene

**Author's Note:**

> 2011 spn_j2 Big Bang entry

The Motel

Pacing the small confines of their latest motel room, Sam throws his hands in the air, then whirls to face Dean, directing his best glare at the man. “What do you mean, you won’t pretend to be my boyfriend? It’s for a case, Dean. You can’t say no.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Dean glares back. “I can, and I am. People get us confused as a couple often enough; I’m not giving them future ammunition.”

Sighing in exasperation, Sam’s shoulders slump just a little, until he forces himself to straighten. It wouldn’t do to appear weak; big brothers detect that as quickly as sharks scent blood in the water. “Who cares what they think? They’re strangers, dude, and we’ll never see them again after the case is over.”

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Dean shakes his head in the negative. “The fact remains--”

“I’ll do it.”

The quiet declaration has both Winchesters starting in surprise, reaching for their guns at the same time. As they turn, both guns transform into an ooze which slimes through their fingers, before falling to the floor with a clunk as the guns regain their intended shape. “Ah, ah, none of that, boys.”

“Gabriel?!”

Catching the look of utter surprise on Dean’s face, Sam knows it must mirror his own. In fact, he’s hard pressed to figure out which of them is more taken aback. However, Sam is the first one to recover, and he stalks towards the Archangel, indignation making him forget that doing so might not be the brightest idea. Not only because of Gabriel’s powers, but also considering what he’s done to them in the past. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you even find us?”

In the face of Sam’s formidable temper, the Archangel only looks indulgent. “Oh, come now, Sam. You don’t think that at some point during the three times you’ve been in my power, I wouldn’t have taken the time to put my own version of a tracking device inside of you? I have to say, I’m not sure why no one else has thought to do that.”

Putting his hands over his ribs, Sam looks at Gabriel in confusion. “But, Cas--”

“Yes, yes, I know I can sense them, now that I’m close enough.” Waving a dismissive hand, Gabriel looks at Dean, and then back to Sam. “Castiel is good, but he doesn’t know all that an Archangel knows. My marks are invisible to all but the highest echelon of angels, and he wouldn’t have the power to override them with the Enochian sigils he engraved on your ribs, even if he’d known they were there.”

“Take them off.” Both Sam and Gabriel swing around to look at Dean. Sam hates to admit it, but he’d almost forgotten that Dean was still in the room. Dean is standing there, arms crossed over his chest, and he’s glaring at Gabriel.

Gabriel doesn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “No. I’m here to help, and even with my mark on you, the Enochian sigils make it harder than I’d like to find you. Without it, it would be impossible.”

“First, we haven’t accepted your so-called offer of help. Second, if we do take it, you can use a cell phone, just like we gave Cas.” Dean’s expression falters as the name of their missing friend passes his lips, but then he regains control and looks, if anything, more mutinous. Sam sends a worried glance at Gabriel to see how he’s taking Dean’s temper. For the moment, the Archangel seems more amused than angered.

“I may play human better than any of my brethren, Dean, but don’t mistake me for one. I will not be tethered by your devices. What if you can’t, or won’t answer at your end? Then I wouldn’t be able to find you. Castiel might not have known better, but I won’t allow you to put a leash on me.”

The stare Gabriel directs at Dean is mild, but Sam can see Dean taking it as a challenge. Looking between the two, Sam starts to worry about what will happen if Dean doesn’t back down. He remembers how casually Gabriel had killed Dean over and over again, and then took him away for six long months.

The trauma those events had caused him had been supplanted after Dean went to Hell, but the memories of how horrible that time had been is never far from the surface. He remembers earlier this year they’d further been at Gabriel’s mercy when he’d made them jump through hoops when they were moving from channel to channel.

Even that time he’d yanked their chains for almost an entire case rankles, making them fight like kids. Sam’s opinion about Gabriel had been starting to mellow some, but maybe he needs to rethink that.

Clenching his hands into fists, Sam knows how impotent he is in the face of an Archangel’s power, especially without the knife in his hands. The feeling of helplessness only fuels his anger, however. “You have some nerve showing your face to us again, after what you’ve done to me and Dean.”

Gabriel jerks his face around to look at Sam, a flash of something Sam can’t identify crossing his features, before Gabriel’s expression settles on amusement and he takes a few steps closer to Sam. The motel room isn’t big, so the two are almost toe-to-toe by the time he stops. “Whether you believe me or not, I was trying to do you a favor with the channel hopping, and all those times I killed Dean, and I’m here to do you another one, now.”

Not liking the amusement in the face of his anger, Sam narrows his eyes at Gabriel in suspicion. “Why? Just what are you planning?”

Taking another step, Gabriel’s body brushes against Sam’s, and Sam jumps at the contact. “Hmmm, no one is going to believe that we’re boyfriends if you jump like that when we touch. Maybe we should practice.”

Without any more warning than that, Gabriel reaches up and pulls Sam’s head down. He pushes their lips together softly at first, and then harder, slipping his tongue out to run over the closed seam of Sam’s mouth.

Gabriel’s lips are velvety and warm against his, and the gentle lick of his tongue has Sam opening up without even thinking about it. A soft sound escapes Sam’s mouth, and Gabriel swallows it down.

“Dudes!”

Dean’s voice breaks Sam out of the trance he feels like he was in at the first touch of the Archangel’s mouth on his. Pure shock dispels the anger he’d been gathering around himself. Sam quickly jerks away, taking several steps back before he stops to stare at Gabriel with wide eyes. It’s only a feeling of stubbornness to show as unaffected a front as possible that keeps Sam from raising a hand to his still tingling lips.

“My eyes, man. Are you trying to blind me?”

Turning towards Dean once again, Gabriel finally looks more annoyed than amused. Alarmed at the look, Sam reaches a hand out towards his brother. He’s not sure what he's planning on doing, but whatever it is, he doesn’t have time to do it. With a snap of the Archangel’s fingers, Dean disappears.

Gabriel nods in satisfaction, as Sam turns to him in horror. “What the hell did you do with my brother?”

“Relax, Sasquatch. I sent him to Bobby’s, or thereabouts. He’ll be fine.”

“Bobby’s?” Sam can’t help the way his volume rises on the question, even though he knows that yelling won’t get him any further than his anger has. “That’s a half a day’s drive away! And, what do you mean by thereabouts?”

Not taking his eyes off of Gabriel, Sam whips out his cell phone. Urgently, he dials Bobby’s direct line, waiting impatiently for the older man to pick up. To himself, Sam can admit that he’s feeling dizzy from the way he’s been bouncing between shock, confusion, and anger since Gabriel showed up. He’s kind of losing track of which one he’s on. He’s also feeling a little out of his depth. Not to mention shaken up by that kiss, and his reaction to it. Something he’s doing his best to ignore.

Just as he’s wondering what’s taking so long for Bobby to pick up, there’s a click in his ear. Before he can even say hello, he hears Dean’s voice in the background cursing a blue streak. It makes his lips twitch to hear it. “Hey, Bobby. Never mind; I’ve already had my question answered.”

“Well, I ain’t. He ain’t stopped yelling long enough to tell me anything, although, considering the number of times he’s yelled Gabriel’s name, I’m guessing that winged trickster has something to do with it. What’d you idjits get involved in now?”

Finally turning away from Gabriel, Sam shrugs to himself before answering. “Damned if I know. Look, Bobby, I’m going to see if I can find out, but tell Dean that I don’t think I’m in any danger.”

Hanging up before Bobby can respond, mostly because he doesn’t want Bobby telling him he’s an idgit, again (even though it’s probably true in this case), Sam tries to reign in his temper as he turns back to Gabriel. “What the hell were you thinking? Dean’s completely pissed, and it’s going to take forever for him to get back here!”

So much for restraining his temper.

Completely unintimidated, Gabriel moves closer, predatory gleam in his eye belaying his leisurely stroll to Sam. He stops just before he’s close enough to brush against Sam’s big body. “I know. It’s the perfect distance away for us to work on this case of yours and wrap it up before he can get back.”

Not being able to say the same about being unintimidated, Sam is still too angry to take any steps back. Instead, he throws his hands into the air. “You can’t just...that isn’t what...the case will probably...argh!” Sam hates it when he can’t find the words he needs.

Obviously, Gabriel can just make Sam’s brother disappear. It isn’t what normal people do, but Gabriel wasn’t ‘people.‘ The case might take longer than just the night, but he’s with an Archangel now, so who knows. Although, that’s something he can challenge Gabriel on. “Why are you ready and willing to help, all of a sudden? The last time we saw you, you were trying to convince me and Dean to step up and take our places in the Apocalypse.”

Shrugging, Gabriel tilts his head just slightly, although he keeps eye contact with Sam. “As much as I hate to admit it, your brother said some things the last time we met that made me think. So, I made one of the instantaneous decisions I’m famous for, and decided to join you.”

Eyebrows rising in disbelief, Sam crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Instantaneous? Are you kidding? That was months ago.”

Quirking an eyebrow back at Sam, Gabriel’s lips twist into a smirk. “I’ve existed on Earth and in Heaven for longer than you can conceive of. Trust me when I say that several months to you, is as an eyeblink to me.”

Sam tries to wrap his mind around that, but only briefly. Considering the lifetime he’s had working with Supernatural beings, he knows he’ll never have a hope of understanding how they view things. That probably works double for angels, let alone Archangels. “Fine, you want to join our side. We certainly aren’t going to turn down any _genuine_ offer of help...”

Staring hard at Gabriel as he emphasizes the word genuine, he sees nothing more in the Archangel’s expression than indulgent amusement, so Sam continues. “...but why now? We could have used your help with Famine, or, you know, _Lucifer_. This case is pretty minor, in the grand scheme of things.”

Sam looks down, uncomprehendingly, as a smirking Gabriel runs a finger down the center of his shirt. Stopping just above the belt around Sam’s waist. “Beyond the fact that finding you took longer than I’d like because of those thrice damned sigils inside of you, you really can’t think of any reason I might want to pretend to be your boyfriend?”

Something serious is in Gabriel’s eyes when he asks his question, but then it’s gone, mirth replacing it before Sam can figure out if he’d really seen it at all. Sam’s also a little busy fighting his body’s reaction to the simple touch.

A shiver works through him, and he bites his lips hard, trying to use pain to distract himself. Sam shakes his head as he takes a step back from Gabriel, and then another one. He can’t believe he’s having such an inappropriate reaction to the touch of an angel. He’s never had this problem with Castiel before. He is so going to hell.

A sigh slips out of the Archangel’s mouth, and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d say it almost sounds fond. “Really, Sam? You can’t think of why I used enough power to put the entire world on a continuous loop for months, or resurrected your brother all those times, or created an entire reality to teach you and your brother a, admittedly misguided, lesson?”

Feeling defensive for some reason, Sam firms his stance and shakes his head. “When you put it like that, it sounds pretty serious. Maybe it’s love.”

Putting a hand over his heart mockingly, Sam smirks at Gabriel and continues before he can respond. “Seriously, though, you guys seem to enjoy messing with us, yanking us around like puppets on strings. Why should you be any different?”

For the first time that evening, real anger crosses Gabriel’s face. “Don’t lump me in with those others. I am **nothing** like them.” Then, Gabriel seems to shake himself out of his anger, and his smile turns indulgent, but tinged with determination.

Taking a step closer, so he is once more well within Sam’s personal space, Gabriel reaches out and strokes a hand down Sam’s arm. “Hopefully, you’ll figure out the answer to your first question before the evening is over. For now, you need to stop shying away whenever we touch. That is no way to make people believe we’re intimate.”

Still confused with all of the emotions roiling through him, Sam shakes his head again and steps back. “I know you’ve said you had your reasons for doing what you did, but you’ve done nothing but torture me and my brother one way or another since our first run-in with you, I don’t think I can forget that.”

Sam looks away from Gabriel’s penetrating gaze, because he’s not telling the whole truth, and Sam doesn’t want Gabriel seeing that in his eyes. Yes, there is still some anger at what Gabriel has put him and Dean through in the past, but Sam’s body seems more than happy to ignore that. Not to mention, there was that last look they had of him, trapped in the ring of fire as the sprinklers started wetting everything down. Looking lost, uncertain, and alone. Sam remembers feeling sympathy for the Archangel at that point, knowing all too well what it was like to experience those feelings.

Before they’d even left the warehouse, Sam had shoved that look to the back of his mind, and done his best at forgetting how he’d silently commiserated with Gabriel. How there had been some fascination mixed in, or something similar he tried hard not to put a name to. Those memories of the warehouse and the strange feelings they’d engendered, flashes into his mind now, though, softening his stance against the angel, a little. Maybe a lot.

So, when Gabriel takes another step closer to him and gives a challenging tilt of his head, Sam doesn’t step away, this time. “It’s for a case, Sam. A case your brother didn’t feel comfortable enough to do. However, I’m here, offering to watch your back and help you. Are you turning me down?”

Biting his lip, Sam does his best to pull himself together, be more professional, and then nods his head, his breath leaving him in a big sigh. “I’m still not sure how I feel about this, but you’re right. With your help, more lives will be saved than if I tried to do this on my own. If you’re really serious about helping, then I’d appreciate it.”

Gabriel bounces on his toes, looking pleased with himself. “Do we have some time before we have to go out as boyfriends, or do we have to leave right away?”

Wondering what Gabriel is planning, especially with the way he’s been acting since he arrived, Sam licks his lips nervously. “Well, we’re going to a nightclub, so we have a couple hours to kill before its open. Plenty of time for me to get my head in the game, before we get--”

Sam breaks off as the furnishings and atmosphere of the dumpy motel room he and Dean had rented are transformed. Instead of garish lighting, it is now soft and inviting. The couch looks comfortable, instead of lumpy. The carpet isn’t threadbare, it’s thick and full. The motel room has taken on more of a look of a cozy sitting room.

At least it does until the rickety table and chairs in the room are replaced with a small bar. Which is what Gabriel is standing behind. Sam has to smile when he reads the apron Gabriel is wearing - ‘Chocolate, the sixth food group.‘ The smile grows when he gets closer and finds that the bar isn’t stocked with alcohol, but with fixings for fruit smoothies and ice cream shakes. “What’s your poison, Sam?”

Tension Sam hadn’t even been aware of begins to seep away as he looks over the counter at the array of choices. From the way Gabriel had been acting, Sam had kind of thought...well, it doesn’t matter. Especially since one of the things not in the room at all anymore, is a bed. “Uh, I guess I’ll take a strawberry and banana fruit smoothie.”

“Coming right up.”

Instead of snapping one into existence, Sam watches as Gabriel actually makes one from scratch. Not that a fruit smoothie is hard, it just isn’t how he expected Gabriel to do it. His smile changes to a grin when Gabriel finishes with a flourish, pouring his creation into a tall take-out cup, covering it, and sticking in a straw.

Taking the completed treat, Sam takes a tentative sip, and licks his lips. “That’s very good. Thank you.”

“Glad you like it.” Gabriel smiles at him, eyes bright, and Sam feels a strange sensation in his chest, as though his heart skipped a beat. Ignoring strange, unexplained things in their personal lives is the Winchester way, however, so Sam shrugs it off, and watches Gabriel make his own treat.

What a treat it is, too. Sam suspects he might get diabetes just by looking at it. Glancing at the candy-filled ice cream shake Gabriel is currently mixing in a blender, presumably to make the candy into bits small enough to be sucked through a straw (if you sucked like a Hoover, that is...and didn’t that thought send Sam’s mind to places it shouldn’t go), Sam grimaces. “You’re really going to eat that?”

“With relish.” Gabriel abruptly holds up a finger in warning. “Don’t you dare make any condiment jokes.”

Sam gives a small laugh at the humor, feeling much more relaxed than he had earlier. His eyes zero in on a smudge on Gabriel’s cheek. A dot of chocolate stands out against the clear skin, and without thinking about it, Sam reaches across the bar to swipe it off with a finger.

A finger he then sticks in his mouth to suck clean. A flare of heat in Gabriel’s eyes makes something low in Sam’s belly clench, and he looks down in an attempt to hide his confusion.

With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel makes the bar disappear, and Sam jumps in nervousness. Not at the disappearing bar per se, but because the physical buffer between he and the Archangel is now gone. However, Gabriel simply holds out his hand. “Take a walk with me?”

Looking down at the hand, Sam tells himself to stop being such a wuss. This is just a role he’s playing, something he’s done hundreds of times before. He doesn’t know why he’s having such trouble with it this time. Taking a deep, but quiet, breath, Sam reaches out and takes Gabriel’s hand.

At the first step, they move from the motel room to a tree shaded path. In his surprise, Sam’s hand jerks in Gabriel’s grip, but Gabriel just holds on. “Relax, Sam. I thought this would be a nice way to get used to playing boyfriends before we have to go public. A yummy treat, a beautiful place to walk, and each other - what more could we ask for?”

Warily, Sam shrugs, but doesn’t let go of Gabriel’s hand. In fact, he begins to notice how good it feels in his. It’s almost as small as some of the women he’s dated, but the grip is stronger than he’s used to, and the skin isn’t as soft.

The differences make Sam feel better than he would have thought. It’s a reminder that he doesn’t have to be as careful and gentle as he has in the past. That idea makes it easier to hold on as they walk, and talk of inconsequential things.

It still takes him a while to stop silently freaking out about the fact that he’s holding an Archangel’s hand and liking it, but after a while, he does. Gabriel flitting from topic to topic helps, each more interesting than the last, but none that are too serious either. It allows Sam to get lost in the give and take of ideas and thoughts.

Eventually, the conversation winds down, and there is a comfortable silence for a few minutes as they enjoy their sweet treats. Before the silence can turn awkward, Gabriel turns to look at him with a slight smile. “Why don’t you tell me about the case? Let me know more about what we’re supposed to be doing tonight.”

It’s a testament to how comfortable he’s gotten that Sam barely tenses at the reminder of what they’re here for. “Something is hunting people at a local gay nightclub, and every victim has been part of a couple. That’s why I thought Dean and I should go in as boyfriends - to blend in. We’d try to talk to other members, look for any clues. Try and stop the next victim from becoming one. Or maybe, spotting the killers as they look for a victim.”

“That’s a good plan, Sam, and should become even easier with me along. There are many creatures I can sense as something other than human. Tell me everything you know. After all, any information could help, later.” For the first time since they switched to the woodland path, Gabriel shifts an inch or two closer. Sam looks sideways at him, but doesn’t move away. “For example, do you have any idea what kind of creature is doing it?”

Licking his lips when Gabriel moves in another inch, his shoulder brushing along Sam’s upper arm, Sam nods his head up and down, jerkily. “Yeah, I...I’m pretty sure it’s being done by a pair of demons, at least. Maybe more than two. I...”

Sam trails off when Gabriel’s hand shifts until his fingers are threaded between Sam’s. “Besides them being one half of a couple, what do you know about the victims? What do they have in common?”

When it looks like that’s all he’s going to do, Sam, who had tensed up a little, relaxes and tries to focus on Gabriel’s questions past the tingling in his palm. “We haven’t found out too much, yet. We only had time to interview two people before we had to come back here and decide on what our next move would be. One of the problems, is there hasn’t been enough cases to determine a helpful pattern. Not that a lack of deaths is a bad thing, but not knowing when the killers are likely to strike next, or who they’re likely to target, does make our job harder.”

Taking a moment to make sure he’s recalling all of the needed information, Sam pauses briefly before continuing. “There have definitely been two victims, and possible a third, although that one was so long ago compared to the other two, Dean and I weren’t sure there was a connection. The first one was killed just about three months ago. The two more recent cases, and the ones that got our attention, happened within a week of each other. The last one was just a few days ago, so if they are a week apart, hopefully we’ll be able to catch the demons as they prepare to take their next victim.”

Gabriel’s thumb begins moving over the pulse point on Sam’s wrist, and Sam jerks his hand a little before he settles down. It feels really good, almost as good as the kiss had. His cock gives a twitch of interest, and Sam starts thinking of seriously unpleasant things in the hopes of calming himself down.

He isn’t too hard yet, and he really hopes it stays that way. He’s never found himself interested in guys before, at least not enough to actually do anything about it, but he hadn’t crossed them off the list entirely, either. It just figures the first one he picks as an exception has to be a freaking Archangel. Sam could scream at the irony. “Um, in terms of possible commonality, we found out that they were all bgay men, the shortest one was five eleven so they’re tallish, and all had been taken from a club called Krave.”

“Krave? That’s an interesting choice of name for a gay nightclub.”

Sam knows that Gabriel is talking, but he gets distracted from the words themselves when Gabriel releases Sam’s hand, and slips his arm around Sam’s lower back. They are standing so close together, Gabriel’s hip is brushing against Sam’s upper thigh. After a few steps, and Sam hasn’t done anything more than stumble a little, Gabriel tucks a hand into Sam’s back pocket.

The slight touch against his ass makes him shiver, a reaction he tries to suppress considering how close the two of them are standing. Frantically, Sam casts around for something else to say, to take the focus off what he’s feeling, how he’s reacting. Gabriel is obviously trying hard to play his part in his first case, and Sam needs to do the same.

With that in mind, Sam puts his own arm around Gabriel’s smaller frame, over his narrow shoulders. “Oh, one more thing they all had in common - they were all collarless. At least, that’s something one of the surviving partners mentioned. I’m not sure what it means, and we haven’t had a chance to dig further to find out.”

Lost in thought, Sam shifts a little, tugging on Gabriel, causing Gabriel to partly turn towards him. Sam tries to stifle a gasp when Gabriel zaps their mostly empty treats away. Then, he continues the motion Sam had started, and pulls Sam flush against his body.

Sam is only partially successful in stifling his gasp, so he continues talking, as a way to cover his reaction up. “I-I’ve looked online for collarless shirts, but everything I’ve found that claims to be collarless looks like it has a collar to me. So, while I’d love to set myself up as bait, I’m not sure it’ll work since we don’t have the right kind of shirt.”

“Collarless?” Gabriel’s voice sounds surprised, and Sam looks at him curiously, only to see a faraway look in his eyes.

Craning his neck to look behind him, Sam tries to figure out what Gabriel is so focused on. As far as he can tell, however, there is nothing there but the trees they’ve been walking though. “What’s going on? Is there something there?”

Shaking his head, looking a bit like a dog with a bone... _or maybe that should be wolf_ , Sam thinks...Gabriel seems to refocus on the here and now. “Sorry, kiddo, I got lost in thought. Given what you just said, I think I might be going about this the wrong way. I’m not going to be able to ease you into this as gradually as I’d hoped. Stepping things up has just become necessary with that new piece of information.”

Feeling a little lost (not a new feeling tonight), Sam looks at Gabriel in exasperation. “What are you talking about?”

Between one blink and the next, however, Sam is stumbling again as his feet go from the slightly uneven ground of the woodland path, to the hard floor of the motel room they’d left a while ago.

Already distracted from his question by the change of scenery, Sam completely forgets about it when Gabriel pushes him down onto the couch and then follows him, practically draping himself sideways over Sam’s front. Immediately, Gabriel’s hand makes its way back onto Sam’s body, but this time it slides along the inseam of Sam’s jeans, stopping just before the juncture of Sam’s thighs.

A hand so close to his rapidly hardening cock completely derails Sam’s thoughts. Luckily, his cock is filling out down along the other leg, so Gabriel won’t be able to feel it, although if he’s looking he might be able to see it. He turns his face away from Gabriel’s gaze in an attempt to hide how the Archangel is affecting him. Sam knows that the desire has to be showing plainly on his face.

For his part, Gabriel acts like nothing unusual had happened or was happening. “Don’t worry about not finding any collarless shirts. I can take care of our getups with no problem. And, since it’s just demons, and not too many at that, we can set you up as bait, and I can take them down. They shouldn’t prove too challenging to take care of. If I could play bait, I would, but with a possible height requirement...five hundred years ago my current vessel may have been thought of as tall, but not in the twenty-first century.”

Desperately, Sam tries to get back on track with the conversation. “Yeah, taking them down shouldn’t be a problem; it’s finding them before they kill someone else that will be  
the challenge. To keep that from happening, I have no objection to being bait. I’ve done it often enough when it’s just me and Dean together. It was part of my original plan, after all. You aren’t a hunter, though, so---”

A squeeze along the inside of Sam’s thigh has Sam breaking off, and Gabriel fills the sudden silence. “You think that in all of my thousands of years of existence, and all the centuries I’ve lived on Earth, that I haven’t learned how to hunt a variety of creatures...and people?”

Squeezing his hand around Sam’s thigh once more, Gabriel skips over the hot zone of Sam’s groin and brushes over Sam’s abdomen. Sam sucks in a sudden breath, and his stomach quivers under the touch.

With a mischievous grin, Gabriel moves, throwing a leg to the other side of Sam’s hips, effectively straddling his lap. Both hands land on Sam’s shoulders, and Sam’s eyes widen, suddenly unsure where to put his own hands. “Enough about the case; we need to work on touch a little more. I’m obviously comfortable with touching you, but barring the hand holding, you haven’t done much touching back.”

Sliding his hands down Sam’s arms, Gabriel slips them under Sam’s, and just leaves them there, touching palm to palm. “Come on, Sam. Touch me. The boyfriend routine isn’t going to look very convincing if you won’t lay a hand on me. And if you keep flinching or jumping when a touch is a little intense, people will think I’m abusing you.”

Normally, Sam might laugh at the idea that someone the size of Gabriel could be thought to abuse him, but he knows the power Gabriel can wield, has seen it, been the focus of it more than once. “I just...I don’t know if I can do this. Touch you like a...a lover, I mean.”

Gabriel tsks. “Is it the male thing? I’d have thought you’d be more open-minded than that, Sam. I’m disappointed in you. If it helps, not all of my vessels have been male. I have been hosted by more than one woman in my long life.”

Shaking his head in the negative, Sam worries at his bottom lip. “No, it isn’t the male thing. I’ve never...I haven’t had a male lover, but I’m not averse to the idea. It’s, well, you’re an angel, and I don’t want to get smited for touching you like that.”

Again, only a partial truth. Sam isn’t really worried he’ll get smited, but he does think there's something wrong with him for wanting an angel. Surely that can’t be right; angels are above that kind of thing, and it isn’t acceptable for Sam to want more when Gabriel is just trying to help.

Tsking again, Gabriel adds a bit of a head shake. “You aren’t going to get smited, Sam, and you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be. No one is going to expect us to be rutting together in a corner or humping on the dance floor, although, if you want to do that...” Gabriel trails off at the pissed off look Sam sends him, and laughs softly before continuing. “As I was saying, you just need to be able to touch me, and have me touch you, without shying away.”

When Sam looks skeptical, and still doesn’t move, Gabriel gives a huff of exasperation. “Look, I’ll make it easy on you. Put your hands on my arms, and rub up and down. Just that, for now, nothing else.”

Unclenching his hands, and Sam isn’t sure when he fisted them in the first place, Sam places them tentatively on the cusps of Gabriel’s shoulders, and slides them slowly down to the wrists.

When nothing happens, and apparently he had been at least a little worried about being smited, Sam reverses course, moving just as slowly as before. He tries to maintain eye contact with Gabriel, but has to look away when he starts having to regulate his breathing.

Regular breathing is harder to maintain when Gabriel makes the sleeves of his shirt disappear, and all at once, Sam’s hands are on bare skin. Taking a deep breath, and holding it in, Sam forces himself to continue. His hands conform to the hills and valleys of Gabriel’s muscled upper arms, and the hair on his forearms tickles and prickles against his palms.

After a couple more trips up and down, Sam begins to relax. The next time he reaches Gabriel’s biceps, Sam stops and squeezes gently, rubbing his thumbs over the muscles there.

“Mmmm, that feels nice. I like the improvisation. You have seriously large hands; you can almost encircle my upper arm with one. They're strong, but gentle at the same time. They would feel wonderful combing through my wings. I bet you’ve had a great deal of success in the bedroom with hands like that.”

The teasing tone doesn’t tense Sam up again as he’d have thought it would. Instead, it relaxes him, makes him more confident in what he’s doing, because obviously Gabriel likes it. He also ignores the bedroom comment; he’s much more interested in what Gabriel said about his wings. “Would that be possible? Grooming your wings, I mean.”

“Would you like that - to run your hands over that part of me?”

The thought of being able to touch, possibly see, Gabriel’s wings both distracts him from his arousal, and conversely, adds to it. “Yes! Definitely, yes. I’d love to see what your wings look like, and anytime you need help grooming them... Are they so big you can’t reach all the areas yourself? What color are they?”

Smirk pulling up his lips, Gabriel shakes his head, the move looking fond to Sam. “I’ll be glad to answer all of your questions about my wings another time. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you avoided my comment on your prowess in the bedroom; how your hands must have pleased your past lovers.”

Fighting a blush, Sam shrugs. “I haven’t had that many lovers, but I’ve never had a woman complain.”

“I can certainly believe it. I bet you knew just where and how to touch, to make a woman lose herself in pleasure. Is the reverse true?”

Still caressing Gabriel’s arms, Sam shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not sure what you mean. The reverse of what?”

Putting a hand on Sam’s cheek, Gabriel guides his face up, so they are once again looking eye-to-eye. Gabriel’s hand doesn’t allow for any movement away, so Sam resigns himself to holding position during the answer to whatever embarrassing question Gabriel is about to ask. “Have you ever allowed a woman to take control; to be the one to bring you to pleasure?”

Images of Jess flash through Sam’s mind. After they’d been lovers for a while, they’d decided to try branching out in the bedroom. Experiment. He’d held her down so she couldn’t move, and that had been amazing, but there had been the time where he’d allowed her to tie him up, and that had been even better. Being the sole focus of her attention, knowing that he couldn’t get away and take over... It had been one of the best orgasms of his life.

There had also been the time that she’d surprised him, told him to turn over on his hands and knees. Her slim fingers had slid inside of him, stretched him open, and then she’d strapped on a dildo, and thrust inside of him. No bigger around than two or three of her fingers, the orgasm that was ripped from him had still been the second best one he’d ever had.

Those memories are personal, though, and Sam isn’t about to share them. So, biting his lip, he just looks at Gabriel and stays silent.

Patting his cheek, Gabriel releases his hold, and smiles at him. “Not to worry, Sam. You don’t have to tell me any details. I can see that you have, and that you liked it.”

Shock widens Sam’s eyes, quickly followed by anger. “You read my mind? You looked at my memories, and--”

“No!” Keeping his own eyes wide and looking straight into Sam’s, Gabriel’s shout of denial is shocking after the quiet conversation they’d been having. “No, I know how important privacy is to humans. It’s a lesson none of my brothers have bothered to learn, as they have spent so little time among you, but I know and understand. It doesn’t matter to me with most humans, but I’ll never do that to you. I will never go inside your mind or invade your dreams without your permission. Unless something of great import needs to be communicated, and that is the only way.”

Surprised, but mollified by Gabriel’s sincere denial, Sam nods his head. “Good. That’s good; thank you. And...I accept the condition.”

“Angels and humans are similar in many ways, but our differences are even more abundant. I’ve had a chance to learn about both. One other thing I’ve learned, is that distraction can help both humans and angels get past something that they are uncomfortable with for whatever reason.” Settling his hands on the junctures of Sam’s neck and shoulders, Gabriel leans closer, until his face is just inches away from Sam’s. “For example, you seem much more comfortable with touching me now.”

At first, Sam looks at Gabriel uncomprehendingly, but when the Archangel’s words sink in, Sam becomes aware of his hands for the first time in several minutes. Unconsciously, he’s moved them from Gabriel’s arms to the middle of his waist, and Sam’s thumbs are caressing Gabriel’s bare abdomen.

They are making broad sweeps from just above Gabriel’s navel, to just below Gabriel’s nipples. Sam is mesmerized by the motion, and just watches, until he notices that Gabriel’s nipples are hard peaks.

Thumbs tingling to reach up and find out how hard they are, Sam instead snatches his hands away. He knows how the body can respond unwittingly to stimulation, and he has to remember that Gabriel is doing this to help the team, not because he wants Sam. Can’t want Sam; not with the demon taint in his blood. Sam well remembers Castiel’s reaction when first meeting him; how he wouldn’t even shake Sam’s hand.

“Shame on you, Sam Winchester. You were doing so well, too. Shall we try just a little more before we leave?”

Gabriel’s hands leave Sam’s neck, and slowly start to trail down his upper chest. Before he can get too far, though, Sam grabs his hands. If Gabriel gets to his nipples, Sam knows that he won’t be able to hide his reaction to Gabriel’s touch anymore. “No, that’s okay. You’re right; your distraction worked, and I’m feeling much more comfortable now. Besides, it’s getting to be the perfect time to show up at a nightclub. I’m sure I’ll do just fine once we get--”

The Club - Part One

 

“--there.” Blinking to make sure what he thinks he’s seeing is really there, Sam looks at Gabriel in exasperation. They’re in an alleyway, right outside of the club the supernatural killers have been targeting. Sam can see the long line of men waiting to get in, and the neon sign proclaiming the name for anyone in doubt about where they are.

The Archangel just looks back at him nonchalantly. “What? The sooner we start, the sooner we catch the things killing your fellow humans. Right?”

Taking a deep breath to calm his heart, still racing from the close call on the couch moments before, and another for patience, Sam scowls at Gabriel. “We aren’t dressed for the part, yet. No one is going to talk to me while I’m dressed in these ratty jeans and too-small t-shirt of mine...” Sam eyes the buttoned up, polyblend shirt Gabriel is wearing before continuing. “...and they won’t talk to you looking like a public school teacher.”

A little taken aback at the abrupt change from seduction scene to alleyway, Sam knows there is something he’s forgetting to mention, but it takes him a second to think of it. “Knife! I don’t have the demon-killing knife with me. Or any other weapons for that matter. Holy water might come in handy at some point, tonight.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Sam nods his head in satisfaction at thinking of some major flaws in Gabriel’s little transportation technique.

Mirroring Sam’s position, except with a light scowl on his face instead of a smirk, Gabriel crosses his arms over his own chest. “First of all, you underestimate your own appeal, especially in that shirt. Secondly...” Gabriel pauses and looks down at himself. “...I guess I don’t have much defense about my own clothes. Thirdly, you’re with me now. I’ll take care of our costumes and accouterments as we head in. Alright?”

Not too happy about the choice of clothing being taken out of his hands, but not wanting to waste any more time, Sam reluctantly nods and then, without thinking about it too much, puts his arm over the Archangel’s shoulder. “Right. So, let’s do this thing, then.”

Distracted by a hand sliding into his back pocket, Sam stumbles just as he had on the woodland path. He rights himself hurriedly when music pours in from all sides. They’re inside the club, and Sam’s encased in tight leather pants, and a mesh shirt that ends well above his hips, revealing more than half of his six-pack.

Throwing his hands up in exasperation, Sam glares at Gabriel. He refuses to react to how good Gabriel looks in his own tight leather outfit. It almost mirrors Sam’s, except Gabriel has on a leather coat that billows around him when he walks. “Would you stop doing stuff like this?!”

Futilely, Sam tries to pull his shirt down, and then stares dumbly as his hands are captured in Gabriel’s. Gabriel strokes them softly, and Sam tries to cover up his shiver. He’d have thought he’d gotten enough practice at that on the walk or in the motel room, but apparently he hasn’t, because repressing it is harder than he thinks it should be. “Relax, Sam. You look...great. And, before you berate me some more, your knife is strapped along your right thigh, and there’s two vials of holy water taped just below the waistband of those pants.”

More reluctantly than he’d like to admit, Sam pulls one of his hands free of Gabriel’s hold. Patting himself down, Sam is glad to feel the weapons where Gabriel said they would be.

Just as he starts relaxing, and thinking that this is going to go pretty well, a beefy guy in leather pants and strips of leather crisscrossing his chest walks by. He stops and gives Sam a complete once-over, and then glances at Gabriel. “You’ve got your hands full with that one, don’t you? Do you need a hand?”

Sam doesn’t understand why the guy is asking such questions, and he watches in bewilderment as Gabriel draws himself up and stares at the man imperiously. “I can assure you that I have everything in hand, and certainly don’t need help with him.”

The man doesn’t take umbrage with Gabriel’s attitude; he just nods respectfully and walks off. Sam watches him go. “What was that all about?”

Gabriel looks at him curiously. “You really don’t know what kind of club this is, do you?”

Realizing that Gabriel still has one of his hands, Sam pulls back with reluctance. The confident, but soothing grip had felt nice. Made him feel calmer. Safe. “I know it’s a gay club. That _is_ why we’re doing the boyfriend thing, after all. If it’s more than that, however, I didn’t have a chance to discover it before you showed up.”

The expression on Gabriel’s face is an odd one, kind of like sympathy mixed with glee. “It is a club for gay men, Sam. But it specializes in D/s.”

“D S?” Sam feels a sinking sensation in his stomach. “I take it you don’t mean the Nintendo console?”

At the Archangel’s wry smirk, the sinking sensation in Sam’s belly turns to horror. “I can’t dominate you!”

Gabriel’s exclamation of, “Damn straight you can’t,” comes at the same time as Sam’s, “You’re an angel!”

Eyebrows elevating in surprise, Gabriel advances on Sam, who instinctively backs up until his back hits the wall. Sam’s held his ground against some extremely fearsome creatures, but it isn’t fear that has Sam backing up. It’s something he can’t put a name to. Not yet, at least.

Feeling like a deer caught in a car’s headlights, Gabriel’s stare pins him in place. “You think the only reason you can’t dominate me is because I’m a servant of Heaven?”

Not sure why he’s suddenly gulping with nerves, Sam nods his head, hair pulling where it lies against the slightly tacky club wall behind him.

Before he can say a word, though, Gabriel is practically leaning against him, running a finger along the top of Sam’s new leather pants. The nail of his finger just brushing Sam’s bare stomach. “Why do you just assume you should be the top while we’re in this club, Sammy?”

Wanting to protest the nickname, Sam is too busy trying to control the quivers in his stomach and the erection trying to form in his pants from Gabriel’s touch. He can accept his deviance, God knows he’s done worse than lust after an angel, but he can’t let Gabriel know how he’s reacting to his touches.

Demon-tainted as he is, Sam can’t let these feelings free. Besides, the Archangel is acting. Just acting. Finally believing he has himself under some control, Sam tries to fill his voice with scorn. “Well, look at us, Gabriel. I’m more than half a foot taller than you, and everything about me is bigger than you.”

“I don’t know about everything, Sam.” An eyebrow wiggle, a smirk, and a gaze downward leaves no room for doubt in Sam’s mind about what Gabriel’s referring to.

Sam can feel himself flushing all over, and he fights the urge to glance downward, instead keeping his eyes on Gabriel’s face. “Maybe not, but at least based on the obvious size difference, who’s going to believe that I submit to you?”

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that dominance and submission has anything to do with size, Sam.” Gabriel shakes his head at him, and Sam can see that the amusement is back in his face. “As you said, look at us.”

Sam flushes again as he takes in Gabriel’s meaning. Sam’s the one backed into the wall. Sam’s the one being caressed in this public place. “But...I know what you are!”

“True. Did you think of that at all, though, as I was backing you up?” When Sam just looks down and doesn’t answer, Gabriel sighs, and reaches up to cup Sam’s cheek. “Remember, it’s just pretend, for the sake of the case. You play your part, and I’ll play mine. You outlined a good plan earlier; if we follow it, we’ll be done before the night is out.”

Stepping back just a few millimeters, Gabriel drops his hand from Sam’s cheek. “You just said you can’t dominate me because of what I am, and you’ve been following men your whole life - first your father, and then Dean. I just figured it would be the easier role for you to assume.”

That Gabriel was trying to save face for Sam means a lot, but Sam has been trying hard not to lie to himself this year. He knows that he has liked the Archangel taking charge so far, at least physically. However, Sam hasn’t liked how he’s tried, and is still trying, to control the case.

That isn’t something he’s willing to leave to an amateur, no matter how long he’s been around. “Okay, I’ll follow your lead in terms of the physical stuff, you probably know much more about this type of thing than I do anyway, but you do me the same courtesy with the case.”

“Agreed.”

Glancing surreptitiously around, Sam realizes that people are starting to notice them, and that isn’t good. Standing out in this kind of way, could tip off the killers. Demons had nothing if not a keen nose for anything that could cause them trouble. He has the feeling that his usual smile and sincere eyes aren’t going to get them out of people’s awareness. Damned if he knows what to do, though.

Apparently, Gabriel has noticed too. Even more, he’s noticed Sam’s uncertainty. Stepping back in, Gabriel settles his hand in the middle of Sam’s chest; he spreads his fingers wide, the tips just shy of Sam’s nipples. “Down on your knees, and hold onto my hips with your hands. Don’t otherwise move, unless I tell you to.”

The sensual, commanding tone sends a shiver down Sam’s spine, and he follows Gabriel’s commands before he even thinks about it. Once he’s on his knees, his brain starts working again, and he looks questioningly at Gabriel. As he does, he sees one of the people that had been watching nod and walk away.

A cocked eyebrow from Gabriel and a quick eye flick to the side gets Sam catching on quick. Sam couldn’t figure out a way to divert the attention they’d gained, but Gabriel has. Sam lowers his eyelids to convey his understanding, and then settles in to wait for the next move.

Gabriel doesn’t keep him waiting long. “Look up at me, and keep your eyes open.” Putting a hand under Sam’s lifted chin, Gabriel lowers his head and licks tantalizingly over Sam’s lips.

The touch is barely there, but it feels more intimate than anything they’d done in the motel room, mostly because they are both looking into each other’s eyes while Gabriel does it. Sam’s breath hitches when Gabriel does it again, and then a third time.

Hands clenching into Gabriel’s hips, Sam starts rubbing his thumbs in circles until Gabriel nips at Sam’s lower lip, hard. “I said, don’t move.”

Instantly, Sam stops, and he’s rewarded by having his lower lip drawn into Gabriel’s mouth. Gabriel laves and sucks it until Sam lets out a small moan. Sam’s breathing hard when Gabriel brushes his lips against Sam’s in a barely-there touch before pulling away.

Waiting for however Gabriel is going to touch him next, Sam is confused when nothing happens. Eyes focusing again, Sam sees Gabriel looking behind himself. The people who’d been drawn to their disagreement have all gone. Right. They were acting. It was all pretend.

Clearing his throat, Sam gets to his feet, forcing himself to not sway towards Gabriel. “Okay, so let’s get this show on the road. We’re going to go out into that club, dance once or twice and get a drink to nurse. It’ll be a good way to look everything over, and establish ourselves as a couple. So, let’s go.”

Before Sam can take more than a single step, Gabriel is reaching out and stopping him in his tracks. “After we catch the hellspawn we came here for, I’m going to take us somewhere nicer than that crappy motel you’re staying in, and I’m going to see if you finally have the answer to the question I asked you earlier this evening.”

Wrinkling his brow in confusion, Sam looks at Gabriel curiously. “Which question?”

“About why I’d want to pretend to be your boyfriend.” Not waiting for a reply, Gabriel lets go of Sam’s arm, slapping his ass sharply. Sam stumbles for the second time of the night; surprised by both the slap and the jerk his cock gave at the sting.

Ever since Gabriel first showed up, saying he’d pretend to be Sam’s boyfriend, Sam has felt off balance and confused. He’s tired of it, but he can’t quite seem to get his equilibrium back. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

It doesn’t help that the hand Gabriel’s put on his lower back is searing through his skin and straight to his cock. Especially when every step Sam takes, seems to jostle the hand, so it almost feels like Gabriel is stroking him.

He really needs to get his mind out of the gutter. He needs to remember that everything Gabriel does tonight is to catch the supernatural creatures they are after.

Gabriel pushes them out onto the dance floor, right in the middle of dozens of writhing, half-naked, leather-wearing men. Sam doesn’t know how they’re going to spot the killers in the midst of this mash of people. He does become aware of the restraint Gabriel showed in the outfits he selected. Some of the men are hardly wearing more than a leather thong.

Scanning the room again, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the immensity of their task, Sam is slow to start dancing. He just sways to the music as he looks around. At least until Gabriel’s hands cup the jut of each of his hips and starts moving him.

Sam looks down at the Archangel in surprise. “You’re going to stand out like a sore thumb if you just sway on your feet, Sam. You need to get into it. Feel the beat. Now, trust me.”

So saying, Gabriel spins him around, until his front is plastered to Sam’s back. At first Sam feels ridiculous. He’s so much bigger than Gabriel’s vessel. But Gabriel’s presence is huge. Sam can feel it all around him, and he doesn’t know why everyone else doesn’t stop and take notice of this immensely powerful being in their midst.

They don’t, though. They just dance on, and with one of Gabriel’s hands moving to Sam’s shoulder, and the other staying on one of Sam’s hips, Sam starts dancing. He loses himself in the movement of Gabriel’s body behind his, more than in the beat, although he can feel it thrumming through him. Or, maybe it’s the arousal he’s feeling. He’s not sure anymore.

With his back to the Archangel, Sam relaxes control of his body, and his cock hardens completely, pulsing every time Gabriel shifts one of his hands. He starts leaning back against Gabriel’s small form more and more, knowing that with angel strength, Gabriel can take Sam’s weight.

Turning his head a little, Sam feels feathers brush his cheek, and he realizes that Gabriel is partially cradling him, supporting him, with his wings. Opening eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, Sam can’t see them, and disappointment flows through him. Still, he turns his face into them a little more, and Gabriel makes a small sound behind him when he does.

When Gabriel’s knees press into the backs of his, Sam falls back against the Archangel just a little more, feels himself closed over with the invisible wings. Gabriel still isn’t acting as if he’s at all affected by Sam’s weight; he just slips both of his hands around Sam’s waist. One goes under Sam’s shirt and spreads out over his heart, and the other spreads over his abdomen, the tips of Gabriel’s fingers only an inch or so shy of Sam’s aching, leather covered erection.

“Oh, Sam. I knew you’d be like this when you really let go. That you’d give yourself over, totally.” Gabriel’s voice sounds shaky and hoarse, but the tone and the words barely penetrate Sam’s arousal, at first.

When they do, Sam does his best to shake himself out of the fugue state he’d fallen into, letting Gabriel support his weight and control his movements. They have a case, and he can’t afford to let himself forget that, or forget why Gabriel is helping him.

Taking a fortifying breath to gather his strength, he straightens up, away from Gabriel, turning to face him as he does so. “I think we’ve probably convinced anyone who’s watching that we’re together, and here to enjoy ourselves. Why don’t we separate and see if we can spot anything. If you take the bar, I’ll go look around the rest of the dance floor, and in the shadows at the back.”

For a moment, Gabriel’s face is unreadable, and Sam almost reaches out to him. The moment passes when Gabriel shakes his head, expression serious, but more natural. “The shadows can be dangerous places, Sam. Why don’t I take them, and you take the bar?”

Sam shakes his head right back. “People are four deep around the bar, at least. You’’ll get a better sense of evil in a crowd like that, than me trying to actually see everyone, someone who may look totally human. I’m guessing that the shadows are much less crowded.”

Not looking happy about it, Gabriel slowly nods his head. “This is your hunt. As I promised before, I’m just here to support you. Just...call out if you need a hand.”

Feeling the need to reassert his independence, Sam composes his face into a serious look. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Gabriel. I can take care of myself.” The sincere look of concern that flashes across Gabriel’s face, makes Sam relent, a little. “But, if I need help, I’ll certainly call out for you.”

Pursing his lips together, Gabriel nods once, and turns abruptly away. Sam watches him go, and his heart gives an odd throb as he watches the slim form melt into the crowd.

Shaking off his inexplicable reaction to Gabriel, Sam turns to face his side of the room. Not wanting to draw too much attention to the fact that he’s scanning the room for trouble, he thinks about dancing and swaying with the crowd. Unfortunately, barring what had just happened with Gabriel, he generally looks like a spastic monkey when dancing, so he puts that thought out of his head.

Not to mention, he’s still pretty hard after that dance with Gabriel. Sam can’t remember the last time he got so lost in what he was doing that everything else faded away. All he’d been aware of was Gabriel’s presence, and the feel of Gabriel molded to his back.

Blinking rapidly, Sam scowls as he pulls himself from those thoughts. Getting lost like that was a bad thing, especially when on a hunt. If Dean had been here, he’d have slapped him upside the head. Hard.

Tuning his senses for trouble, Sam begins to move through the crowd of leather-clad men. It’s slow going as he keeps getting men trying to get him to dance with them. Hands are all over him as he tries to move past.

One or two are persistent to the point of taking his hand and trying to pull him with them. Some try to cajole him, others try to intimidate him, one just gets very intense and tries to stare him down. He’s the one that comes the closest to getting what he wants. Sam hadn’t been lying to Gabriel about being able to take care of himself, though, and he gets away each time.

The treatment has one positive outcome - it doesn’t take long for his erection to fade. Being pawed by strangers has never been Sam’s idea of a good time - it appears that it doesn’t matter if they are men or women; he just likes having a stronger connection to his lovers than a mutual desire to get off.

Finally reaching the end of the dance floor, or maybe dance area would be more accurate, as it seems no one pays any attention to boundaries (in more ways than one), Sam decides that he needs to really focus. Somehow, Gabriel has thrown him off his game without even trying, and Sam needs to rededicate himself to the reason they’re here.

Determinedly, Sam turns to look along the walls of the room. He promptly blushes, fiery red spreading along his cheeks and up to his hairline, as well as down his neck. It isn’t even the few people he can see that are obviously having sex where anyone can watch. It’s the other things the men are doing.

One man is crawling behind another on his hands and knees, and when the walking man stops, the other heels like a dog. Getting a pat on the head for his trouble. And, he looks happy about it.

Another is turned over a man’s knee, bare ass exposed to the room, and he’s being spanked with a paddle. Tears are streaming down the man’s face, but he looks more as if he’s blissed out, than in pain. Sam’s ass tingles as he watches, and he quickly jerks his head in another direction.

Both the crawling man and the man getting spanked are wearing collars, and that detail makes Sam look around more carefully. Once he does, he can see that every couple seems to be made up of a collared man and an uncollared one. More specifically, the collared men act subservient to their partners.

Sam’s hand goes to his throat, and he’s relieved to confirm that he isn’t wearing a collar. He realizes that he fits the sketchy profile, and that only collarless men are being taken (the term makes much more sense now), but he wouldn’t put it past Gabriel to put one on him as a joke.

Watching almost in spite of himself, Sam forces his eyes away, and turns to face the other direction. He only just manages to prevent himself from leaping back when he sees Gabriel standing just inches from him.

The Archangel grabs his arm and drags him, much more successfully than those men on the dance floor, over to the closest wall. Gabriel plants his back against the wall and spreads his legs to shoulder-width. “Get on your knees, and act as if you want to be there.”

The hissed command, along with a gentle but insistent tug has Sam sinking to his knees directly in front of Gabriel. “Wha...”

Small, but strong, hands slide into Sam’s hair and grip his head. “Our practice with touching is hopefully about to pay off even more now than on the dance floor. I need to tell you something, but have to be close enough so that we aren’t overheard, even by supernatural ears.”

Sam’s automatic objection dies unspoken on his lips. As unlikely as it is that they’ll be overheard, there is no way to be sure that everyone around them is actually who they portray themselves to be. With demon killers in the mix, they would have to pick what they said carefully. “So, what do you want me to do down here? It’s going to look very suspicious if I just kneel here.”

In response, Gabriel guides Sam’s head closer to Gabriel’s abdomen, and then he leans down, so his mouth is on level with one of Sam’s ears. “You don’t have to do much, Sam. Put your hands behind your back, and I’ll be guiding your head. Give me control so I don’t hurt you, and whenever I stop moving you, just use your mouth on me. It doesn’t need to be anything big, but we need a cover for standing here.”

Nothing big. Ha! Sam scoffs in his head. Right. Being this close to Gabriel, especially in this way, in this position, is a very big deal. Sam tries to move his head away, but Gabriel tightens his grip. “Damn it, Sam. I have some information for you, and this is the best way to get it to you.”

Subsiding, Sam is rewarded by a loosening of Gabriel’s grip on his head. Less than a second later, Sam feels a tickle in his mind, and then the tickle becomes a voice. ‘I’m sorry, Sam, but this is the least risky way to communicate. Asmodeus is here.’

Taking a deep breath, Sam lets it shudder out over the bare skin of Gabriel’s abdomen. This close, Sam can’t help but feel the ripple that runs through Gabriel. It makes Sam wonder and sharpen his senses, wanting to be sure to pick up every cue from Gabriel as they talk.

Emboldened by the shiver, but still not positive he believes what he’d felt a moment ago, Sam noses into Gabriel’s navel, and nips at the rim of his bellybutton as he thinks to Gabriel, ‘Asmodeus? Who...wait...the demon of lust? Dean and I sent her and her six siblings back to hell a couple of years ago. How can she be back? What’s she doing here?’

As Sam licks out to soothe the sting of his nip, another ripple works its way through Gabriel, and he can feel the tension in Gabriel’s compact form. Gaining confidence that maybe Gabriel is doing more than just tolerating Sam’s touch for the case, Sam opens his mouth against Gabriel’s stomach, swirling his tongue around the patch of skin, and then sucking it in just a little bit.

A bitten off moan is his reward, and Sam can feel himself hardening in the tight leather pants he’s wearing. Gabriel exerts a little pressure in his hair, and Sam lets himself be moved. It’s surreal to be doing this while carrying on such an important conversation in their heads, but the dichotomy makes it even more exciting.

Letting go of some control, letting Gabriel control his movements ratchets up the excitement, but also makes it easier to concentrate of their topic, and Sam is easily able to follow when Gabriel continues. ‘How is less important than why. Although, FYI, she is a he this time around. I don’t know what his overall agenda is, but being here...he has to be feeding off of people’s lusts.’

‘So, we need to stop him, obviously. He must be the one killing the men. I thought it was the work of two, but if he’s powerful enough, then--’

‘No. He...’ Gabriel trails off with a moan when Sam sucks a little harder against one spot. Sam might be letting Gabriel control his head, but it’s Sam who decides whether it’s going to be a lick, nuzzle, bite, or a combination. The mix of submission and control is heady.

Still, he manages to keep one part of his mind on the job. ‘He, what?’

Under his mouth, Sam can feel Gabriel take a deep, fortifying breath. ‘He wouldn’t work like that right now. He’s more interested in building up to full strength, so he’s probably encouraging the lust in the club to build higher than it would on its own. However, there might be a couple of hangers-on who are taking advantage of what he’s doing. Those are the demons doing the killing. They wait until everyone in the club is so distracted by lust, they don’t notice someone being grabbed.’

Abruptly, Gabriel stops both talking and moving Sam’s head. Sam brings his dual focus back, and notices that his mouth is just millimeters away from one of Gabriel’s nipples. Sam’s stomach clenches, and he suddenly becomes aware of his own arousal again. He tries to move up just a little, but Gabriel’s hold on his head tightens, making moving impossible.

The wanting pulls him out of their shared headspace, makes him reveal what he’d meant to keep hidden. “Please, Gabriel. Let me.”

A shudder wracks Gabriel’s entire frame, but he shakes his head sharply in the negative. His whispered voice is tortured. “I can’t. I’m barely holding on to my control as it is. If I let you do that, then I’m going to fuck you right here, right now. To hell with the case, the victims, being in public, and everything else. I don’t want our first time to be tainted that way.”

Stomach clenching again, his cock hardening even more with Gabriel’s last sentence, especially as he caresses over Sam’s parted lips with the pad of his thumb, Sam’s eyes widen at what Gabriel is freely admitting. Sam looks up at Gabriel and knows surprise is clear on his face. “You...want me? You aren’t just pretending for the sake of the case?”

Stunned by the thought, Sam figures he has to be imagining things; hearing what he wants to hear. Although, his stupid heart insists on throbbing hopefully. “Doesn’t the taint in my blood bother you? Castiel wouldn’t even touch me, when we first met. Considering what I’ve done since then, the choices I’ve made, the taint has to be even worse. How can you bare my touch? As an Arch-”

Sam cuts himself off, not wanting to give away any information the enemy really shouldn’t have, and starts again. “Considering who you are, I’d think you’d be even more sensitive.”

“For all his age, Castiel was as a babe in the woods when he first came to Earth to stop the seals from being opened. He knew nothing, except following orders and accepting everything he’d been told as gospel. Now that he’s been here for a while, can you tell me he still acts the same way?”

Swallowing hard at the intense, focused look Gabriel directs down at him, Sam shakes his head no. Wetting his suddenly dry lips, he catches his breath when Gabriel follows the motion of Sam’s tongue with his eyes. The Archangel looks as though he wants to pounce, and Sam finds himself conflicted - wanting it to happen, but still doubting that it’s real.

Gabriel thrusts his hips gently against Sam’s chest, making Sam very aware of just how hard, as well as how thick and long, Gabriel is. His mouth waters at the realization, as well as how close he is. It would be simple to move his head just so...

Then, Gabriel’s hold in Sam’s hair turns more caressing, and Sam leans into it, just a little as Gabriel slips back into his mind. ‘At some point we’ll talk about why it took you so long to realize how much I want you, when I thought I was being very obvious. For now though, I have a lust demon to go kill.’

At that, Sam tries to pull back, but Gabriel doesn’t let him. To the people in the club, Sam knows that it probably looks like a Dom trying to keep a sub in line, but he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t like what Gabriel had just said, at all. Mutinously, he glares up at Gabriel. ‘You mean we have a lust demon to go kill. Don’t you?’

Hands dropping to Sam’s shoulders, Gabriel squeezes the muscles tight with tension, and shakes his head in the negative. ‘No, I don’t. Sam, you can’t do this with me, not if you want to prevent someone else from dying tonight, perhaps many someones. I’ll have to transport Asmodeus somewhere else, or a number people may get hurt in our fight.’

Gabriel brushes hair out of Sam’s eyes with one hand, and then trails his fingers down the side of Sam’s face and jaw, before stopping to cup his chin. ‘The lesser demons will have a field day with the confusion that causes, as the lust Asmodeus has been building is suddenly gone. Right now, they are trying to stay under his radar, acting like scavengers, eating his leavings, as it were. Once he’s gone, they may slaughter as many as they like before they move on to newer hunting grounds. You need to be here to prevent that.’

Reluctantly agreeing with Gabriel’s assessment, Sam leans his head against Gabriel’s stomach, and nods his head in the affirmative. ‘Since you were able to identify Asmodeus, is there any way to do the same with the others, so I’m not flying blind?’

Dissatisfaction wafts through the link. ‘No, I wish there was. The only reason I was able to identify Asmodeus, is because he released a small wave of lust when I was close enough to pinpoint who it was coming from in the crowd. The lesser demons will be masked by his power, unless I’m right next to them.’

Sam is disappointed, but he understands, and tries to send that through the link. The next thing he knows, Gabriel is bending down to capture Sam’s mouth in a kiss. Sam gladly follows his lead, opening his mouth to let Gabriel in.

Moaning as Gabriel’s tongue caresses his, then sucks Sam’s tongue into his mouth, Sam’s hands finally unclasp from behind his back. He clutches at Gabriel’s hips, and holds on desperately as just a kiss has never unraveled him like this before.

As that last thought flits through his mind, Sam feels as though he’s been splashed with cold water. He starts under Gabriel’s mouth, and tries to pull away, but Gabriel doesn’t let him completely go. He just pulls back a little, and nips along Sam’s lips. ‘Gabriel, you have to stop! The lust demon, he’s the one making you...us...respond this way. His powers are--”

‘You and your brother have some real self-worth issues, don’t you?‘ Sam stiffens his spine, ready to try and pull away again, feeling more devastated by his realization than he would have thought possible, earlier today. Before he can, Gabriel continues. ‘It isn’t him, Sam. I’m blocking his powers so that we aren’t experiencing any of the lust he’s projecting. This...’

Wrapping an arm around Sam’s upper back, Gabriel straightens himself out, causing Sam’s body from his knees up to stretch to it’s limit, pulled as taut as a bowstring, and plunges his tongue back into Sam’s mouth.

Sam moans as he experiences being manhandled for the first time outside of a fight. He likes it more than he’d have thought possible. Even more because Gabriel’s tongue is sweeping through his mouth, laying claim to every millimeter.

Gabriel makes a harsh sound in his throat, and even the voice he projects into Sam’s head sounds wrecked. ‘This...is all us. But, you’re correct. As much as I hate to separate from you, in more ways than one, we need to get down to business, and finish this job. I’ll be back as soon as I take care of Asmodeus.’

Sam can feel Gabriel’s hesitation in his mind, and knows the Archangel isn’t happy with whatever he’s going to say next. ‘Sam, when I leave you, my protection from the lust will leave with me. I know how strong you are, but the lust will hit you all at once, and he’s built it to a fever pitch. I can feel the power of it battering at my shielding. I’ll try to get him out of here as fast as I can. When I do, the lust will dissipate rapidly, so you’ll be able to tell when I’m successful with that. It shouldn’t take more than a few moments.’

‘Is that few moments in human time or angel time?’

The crinkle that appears near Gabriel’s eyes lets Sam know that his attempt at lightening the Archangel’s worry is appreciated. ‘Are you ready?’

Bracing himself internally as much as possible, Sam digs his hands into his thighs to prevent himself from immediately reaching out to anyone in his vicinity. Once he’s as ready as he feels he can be, he nods his head.

The Club - Part Two

All but biting his lip in worry, Gabriel closes his eyes, and after a second or two snaps them open again to stare at Sam.

Expecting to be hit with lust immediately, Sam is confused when nothing happens. Cocking his head, he looks up at Gabriel impatiently. ‘I’m as ready as I’m going to be, Gabriel. Waiting makes it worse, so just lower your shield, or whatever, so we can get this done.’

Looking bemused, at first, Gabriel’s expression changes to one of wonder. ‘I have. I lowered it almost a full minute ago, now. You’re sure you aren’t feeling any effects of Asmodeus’s power?’

Concentrating inwardly for several moments, trying to sense any changes in his emotions or desires, Sam finally shakes his head. ‘Not a thing. At least, not lust. Now that I’m concentrating, I can feel power in the room, but it isn’t affecting me, as far as I can tell. I don’t get it; what’s going on? Do you think he knows we’re here, and he’s cut out?’

Looking at him steadily, eyes alight with something Sam can’t name, Gabriel responds in the negative. “To be back after you and your brother...and Ruby...defeated him and his brethren, he’d have had to be brought back by Lucifer. As the demons’ creator, he’s the only one besides dear old Dad with the power to bring them back. So, no, I don’t think Asmodeus would worry about you, even if he knew you were here. ...Of course, that would be a big mistake on his part.’

Ignoring the compliment, at least outwardly (because inwardly he’s fighting a smile that wants to burst out) Sam just looks up at Gabriel from his position on the floor. ‘If that’s a no, then why aren’t I affected? It could be important to know.’

‘I’m pretty sure I know, but give me a second. I want to try something.’

Watching the Archangel, Sam sees him close his eyes for just a moment. Before Gabriel even opens them again, a huge smile is breaking over his face. ‘I’m not affected either. The lust in the room is heavy, but it isn’t bothering me at all.’

Shocked by Gabriel’s hasty decision, Sam stares up at him angrily. ‘You lowered your protection around yourself? That was reckless. What if you had been affected? What if you’d been overcome? A hell of a lot of people would have been screwed. You should have at least consulted me. Are we, or are we not, together in this?’

Showing a mercurial mood swing, Gabriel goes from looking pleased, to thunderous. Before Sam can decide if he should be worried or not, Gabriel’s expression switches once more, this time to regret. ‘I deemed the risk to be minimal, and I was excited by the implications. I’m not used to considering other people, so I didn’t think to ask. I’m...sorry for bypassing you that way.’

Shocked about getting an apology from an angel, let alone an Archangel, Sam nods his head in acceptance. ‘Okay. Just...don’t do it again.’

‘You’re the boss when it comes to the case. I won’t forget again. I’m positive about what’s going on now, but this isn’t the time for that conversation. Maybe won’t be for quite a while, but that aside, we need to get going. Peoples' behavior is escalating fast. Remember, I’ll have Asmodeus out of here quickly, and how these people will react is unpredictable. Stay safe.’

Before Sam has a chance to respond, Gabriel has effortlessly pulled him to his feet, and he pushes away from the wall, sliding by Sam. Sam turns just in time to see him melt into the crowd. Or, maybe he teleports away as soon as the crowd closes over him. Sam isn’t sure. Either way, he’s gone.

For the first time in several minutes, Sam has a chance to really look around the room again. His eyes widen as he takes in exactly what’s happening. He’d been taken aback by what he’d seen before, but he could tell that in spite of how it had looked, it had all been safe, sane, and consensual. He can’t say that anymore.

The dance floor Gabriel has just disappeared into has become nothing more than a mass orgy. Hands are grabbing at anyone within arm’s reach, and clothes are coming off. Not that there had been many to begin with.

As he watches, a chain of blowjobs begin, people lying on their sides on the floor, mouth to cock, stretching right by the wall Sam is still standing beside. Someone’s hands try to draw him in, but as he’d done earlier, he shakes them off and steps away.

Everywhere he looks, he sees masses of people in the middle of, or beginning to be engaged in, sex. He doesn’t see anyone that he can claim is a demon; no one that looks as if they are searching for a victim.

A weird sensation zings through him, and it leaves him gasping. Sam figures that it is Asmodeus’s power going, which means Gabriel has winged him out. Hoping that he’ll find something, now that the cause of the lust explosion is gone, Sam scans his eyes around the room even more carefully this time.

Besides continuing to look for any signs of supernatural activity or anything that seems out of place, he also wants to make sure people don’t panic about what’s going on when they realize what they’ve been forced into doing.

All he sees, however, is a sea of men having sex. It’s almost impossible to make out an individual anymore, especially since they are all in constant motion - moving to the still playing music, thrusting and rubbing against each other. The haze in the air doesn’t help, either.

Several minutes have passed since Gabriel left, and as Sam thinks about that, he wonders if something has gone wrong. It shouldn’t have taken this long for the lust to cut out. It should have done it right after the power of the lust demon had gone.

If that’s what the weird sensation he’d felt had been. Sam has sudden doubts about that. Maybe it had some other origin - the lesser demons or even Asmodeus could have done something supernatural. Or, maybe Gabriel had been defeated as soon as he’d shown up. Or--

Sam finally takes a deep breath to quiet his whirling thoughts. Thoughts such as that are hardly productive, and most likely wrong. Looking around the room again, really focusing on each group as he does, Sam decides it’s more likely that everyone is so caught up, and enjoying themselves so much, that they want to continue the path Asmodeus’s power had started them on.

With that third scan of the room, something out of place finally catches Sam’s eye. Three men, practically screaming of demon, come through the hallway leading from the entrance to the club.

Snorting in disbelief, Sam refrains from slapping himself upside the head. Doesn’t it just figure that the killers haven’t even been around?

Annoyed with himself for not thinking of it earlier, Sam keeps an eye on them as he makes his way around the perimeter of the room. Carefully, Sam slides the knife from it’s sheath on his leg, something about Gabriel’s conjured pants making it easier to get to than it should have been. Then he grabs the two vials of holy water as well.

When the demons catch sight of what’s happening in the big room, their eyes shutter to black, and then back to human-looking again. Sam watches them rub their hands together, lick their lips, and then laugh. His eyes narrow; with three of them, he can’t afford to fight fair. He considers angles, hiding spots, and trajectories.

Throwing the knife is out, because it will only take out one, and then the other two could get it. He can’t go straight in because there are three of them, and only one of him. He also can’t risk the demons using some of the writhing humans as shields or weapons.

Even though they are demons, it goes against the grain to attack them from behind, something that’s possible now that they are moving further into the room, but Sam decides he can’t afford to be sporting about this.

Normally, he would worry about all the witnesses, but his fellow humans are totally focused on each other and their pleasure, right now. If he’s going to do this, there is no time like the present.

Coming at them from behind, Sam throws the vials of holy water at the two demons furthest from him. Before they even land, he’s stabbing the third one in the back, and doesn’t even hesitate through the demon’s death scream or as the black soot of the former human’s tortured soul slams through the floor on its way back to hell.

Before the other two are even done clawing at their burning backs and can fully turn to face the threat, Sam is crouching low and yanking the second demon’s legs out from under him, stabbing him in the chest as he goes down.

Just as the third is lunging for him, Sam pulls the knife out of demon two and thrusts it upward, straight into the third demon’s stomach. As the last demon falls, Sam looks around and blinks in shock. He’s never taken down that many demons, that quickly before. And, with hardly getting any blood on himself either.

Trying to contain a really out-of-place smile, Sam cleans off his knife on the shirt of one of the downed demons. He also rubs his hand clean - the only place that he got any blood - before standing up and putting the blade back where he’d had it before.

Turning to walk away, a groan stops him. The room is full of groans, but they are groans of pleasure. This one had been a sound of pain. Whirling back around, Sam leans over the emptied vessels, and feels for pulses.

Getting a pulse in one of the men has Sam whipping out his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Keeping himself anonymous, Sam explains what the problem is to the person on the other end, and then hangs up. He isn’t about to, “stay on the line until help arrives, sir.”

It might not be the best of moves, getting the paramedics here before Gabriel gets back, but Sam is tired of the loss of life. With the threat banished back to hell by Sam and the knife, and the lust power gone from the room, Sam figures that it isn’t too dangerous for them to come in.

Snapping his phone closed, Sam starts to rise and put it back in his pocket. Before he can finish the move, two men grab him by the biceps, lift him off his feet, and whisk him through a door into a small, private room just a few feet away.

His shock only lasts a few short seconds, and then Sam starts struggling, his phone clattering to the floor as he strains to get away. By the way they pin him to the wall and hold him there with easy strength, Sam knows they aren’t human.

He should have known better than to relax his guard; just because a threat is gone, doesn’t mean its the entire threat. Just because there had never been an indication that there were so many demons doing the killings, doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have been keeping an eye out for more trouble. If his father or Dean were here, they’d have ripped him a new one. So, he’s found the real killers. Or rather, they’d found him.

“How did you kill our three friends, sub?”

Letting the sub comment go, Sam looks at the demon with a confused expression on his face. Evidently, these demons hadn’t actually seen him do the killing. He can very much use that to his advantage.

Right now, his arms are pinned and he can’t get to the knife, but if he can get them to let down their guard for a moment, he might be able to grab it and do some damage. “Kill? I didn’t kill anyone! I wouldn’t! I didn’t see what happened either, but I did see a big guy run out of the club with a weird looking knife in his hand.”

Licking his lips, Sam isn’t about to check to see if they are buying his story, that would be too much of a giveaway, so he plows on. “I wasn’t about to follow him, but I saw some blood on the guys on the ground, and thought they might have gotten hurt in the craziness out there. I checked for pulses and called an ambulance.”

The two demons look at each other across Sam’s pinned arms. “Must have been Sam Winchester. I heard he was seven feet tall, and built like that stone Alastair liked to torture some of his victims on. If this guy thought he was big, I bet it’s true. Damn, I’d have liked to get a crack at capturing him. Lucifer would reward us well.”

Yeah, Lucifer would probably kill them both after they made their delivery, but Sam keeps his mouth shut about that one. Not the smartest of creatures, these demons. In his head, he designates the talkative one as Thing 1, and the quiet one as Thing 2. Just as silently, he apologizes to Dr. Seuss for using his characters’ names in such a way. “See, it wasn’t me. It was this Sam guy. So, can you let go of my arms now, dudes? I need to get back out there. My...boyfriend...went to the bar, and he’ll be looking for me.”

The predatory look that crosses the demons faces doesn’t bode well. “Poor confused sub. Your true love is out there, but instead of staying with you, to protect you from everyone who wants a piece of you, he leaves to get drinks. Only, he isn’t back yet. I wonder what that means - maybe he got caught up by the lust, proving that you, at least, are not his true love. What a way to find out.”

One of his father’s mantras is whirling around in his head - don’t give away anything to the bad guys, never let them suspect what you’re thinking - and it’s the only thing keeping Sam’s face blank. True love, what in the hell does the demon mean by that?

Thing 1 seems angered by Sam’s lack of response, and he escalates his taunting. “Your master doesn’t even want to get caught up in what’s going on out there with you. He doesn’t even think you’re worthy of being collared. That must be so hard, especially considering how you so obviously feel for him. Did you know, you’re the first that hasn’t had their true love returned?”

Fingers start running up and down the front of Sam’s body, and he struggles to get free, because it would look strange if he didn’t. He still has information he wants to learn from them, at least from Thing 1, as he’s the only one doing any talking. His curiosity is peaked by the true love talk. The idea also starts a hurricane of butterfly wings in his stomach.

Even though he isn’t struggling to full capacity, he’s still surprised when the demons act as if he’s doing nothing. “My friend and I, we go for the true love couples that Asmodeus’s power reveals, because the pain of the man left behind is always so great. Don’t worry, though. We’ll take good care of you, and soon you won’t care that your true love doesn’t love you back, or that you never earned a collar around your neck.”

The demon’s voice drips insincerity throughout, and Sam acts scared during the demon’s spiel, so he can take better stock of the two killers. He’ll have to shelve thoughts about what he’s learned about a side effect of Asmodeus’s power later. Sam is too concerned about the lack of effectiveness of his earlier struggles.

Although, waiting for a true love couple to rip apart does explain the lack of pattern to their timetable. Also-- Sam gives himself an internal shake. Focusing is what he needs to be doing. The whole true love thing has thrown him for a loop, though. Are they saying that he and Gabriel-- This time Sam gives himself an internal slap upside the head. These demons want to kill him, and more, and he can’t afford to be distracted.

From the lack of effort it takes them to keep him in place, they are obviously higher up the food chain than the canon fodder that came in before. Also, as far as he can tell, they have no physical weapons - there are no telltale bulges in clothing that might be concealing something. The previous victims also had no wounds consistent with any kind of manmade weapon.

In spite of their strength and power, he’s glad that these two are demons. He has more means of getting rid of them at his disposal than some other creature - such as a werewolf or vampire - , even if it isn’t as easy as it had been when he was drinking... Well, before the apocalypse.

The knife is another option, but because the mention of the knife immediately made them think of the Winchesters, that better come out only as a last resort. The last thing Sam needs tonight, is them summoning Lucifer in the hopes of getting rewarded. Even though Lucifer would kill them, a very good thing, Sam would be left to deal with Lucifer. A very bad thing.

Wanting to distract them, and give himself more time to think, Sam says the first thing that comes into his mind. “Your logic makes no sense. If you only take true love couples because the pain is worse for the survivor, and my feelings are unrequited, then why would you want to kill me?”

A growl is Thing 1’s first response, and then he leans closer, his fetid breath washing over Sam’s face. “A smart ass, aren’t you? Fine. He is inattentive, however, and that’s why we’re going to do you here. So he can always know how close he was to saving you, if he’d paid a little more attention.”

Aggravating a demon isn’t really the best idea, especially since he’s trapped, but really all he wants is to keep them off guard, because there is another option besides the knife. Of course, as trapped as he is, he isn’t sure how much of the exorcism they’ll let him perform before shutting him up. It sucks that he has to say it out loud. Not for the first time, Sam wishes he could just think it instead.

A long thin cut, running from a nipple down to right above the top of his pants, makes him gasp in surprised pain. His shirt gapes open as Thing 1 cuts right through it with his...razor sharp fingernail, and Sam’s focus returns to the here and now, immediately.

Sam’s head thunks back at the realization that in his search for manufactured weapons, he completely overlooked natural ones. It makes him wonder what else he missed. “You’re hurting our feelings by not paying attention to us, sweet sub. I think we need to try a little harder, don’t you?” Thing 2 only grunts, but then he starts to unzip Sam’s leather pants. Which is when Sam discovers that Gabriel hadn’t included any underwear in the delightful ensemble he’d snapped up. Not that underwear would have done Sam any good right now, but it would have been nice to have the additional layer.

Knowing that they’ll find the knife if they keep going, Sam starts to struggle again, harder than before. Since his feet aren’t pinned, Sam brings them up fast, and punches them out against Thing 2, trying to get him away from Sam’s pants. For more than one reason.

Abruptly, Sam is free. He twists and rolls, ending up behind the couch. Quickly, he takes the knife out of its sheath and pushes it under the piece of furniture. Not so deeply that he can’t retrieve it easily, however, if he gets another chance.

Just as the knife is hidden, Sam is grabbed from behind; his arms pulled back so sharply he grunts in pain. It doesn’t keep him from struggling to get away, though, especially when Thing 2 goes back to getting his pants and shoes off.

They are ready for his struggles this time, unfortunately, and it isn’t long before he’s naked from the waist down. His vulnerability makes him recall the state of the corpses he’d seen earlier today in much too vivid detail. He’d told Gabriel about the murder part of the case, but not this part. Sam still isn’t sure why he hadn’t mentioned that the victims were raped before they were murdered.

The ruined shirt, lying in tatters around him, tickles his ribs as he breathes, but he does his best to put his imminent danger to the side. He needs to try and to stall them for time. Gabriel is probably already looking for him. “Look, guys, you keep calling me a sub, but I’m not one. Like you said, I’m not wearing a collar, and that’s why. Not because my ‘master‘ doesn’t think I’ve earned one. If a sub is what you’re after, then you’re out of luck.”

Thing 1’s laugh sounds like nails down a chalkboard, and it sends a chill down Sam’s spine. “You are confused, aren’t you? Because, you certainly aren’t a dom. Not with the way you were letting your lover control your every move on the dance floor.”

The claim makes Sam flush, and the demon smirks. “Oh yes, my friend and I were watching you for a while; noticed you as soon as you came onto the main floor. His hand on your back, you leaning into his touch. We liked the thought of someone as big as you being happy to take it. It always seems to be the ones you least expect to enjoy being led around, to love having their asses filled.”

Is he submissive? It’s a question Sam has been avoiding all evening. Since the couch in the motel room, at least. It’s a hard question to answer, partly because he doesn’t really know what a submissive is. Not really.

If what he saw out in the club is an example of submissive people - people who enjoy getting spanked, people who don’t mind crawling behind someone, people who seem to get off on public sex - then, no.

Except...he had reacted when watching the guy getting spanked, even to Gabriel’s one slap when they’d first arrived, and not in a bad way. The thought of what it would feel like had flitted through his head... Sam shakes the memory away. Just because he didn’t hate it doesn’t mean he wants to try it. Right?

All he knows, is that he really enjoyed the dance and having Gabriel be the one to move his head, plus he’s liking the idea of letting Gabriel fuck him...make love to him...but Sam has no idea if those things make him a sub. He’ll have to research the topic before he can really answer that question. “Why do I have to--” Sam breaks off with a gasp as Thing 1 cuts into him again. This time slicing right over a nipple. He forces himself to continue. “--to be either?”

“You are in a gay D/s club...oh, are you having a life changing realization? What a shame since we’re about to change your life into your death...” Thing 1 pauses, obviously to enjoy the shock and dismay he expects Sam to express.

Apparently, Sam doesn’t project it clearly enough for his liking though, because he takes the time to cut two more stripes into Sam. This time all the way down to his thighs, nicking one of Sam’s balls on the way down.

Smiling at the small cry Sam isn’t able to completely suppress, Thing 1 lifts his bloody fingernails to his lips, and sucks on them, making a real show of cleaning every speck of blood off before he continues. “...before we get to that, though, we’ll have some real fun with you. Our boss likes to feel it when we really get going. He doesn’t approve of true love.”

The pain is such that Sam only hears what Thing 1 says from a distance. When those words sink in, however, he’s shocked back into focus. He and Gabriel had thought Asmodeus was unaware of the killings. Sam doesn’t know if that changes the bigger picture, but he can’t afford to think about it now. “Your boss doesn’t have the juice to make the kill himself?”

That question earns Sam an additional stripe, and Sam knows that whatever happens, better happen soon. The trickles of blood that had come from the first few cuts have turned to steadier streams, and he’s losing too much blood. If this demon would just back off for a few seconds, then he might be able to say the exorcism spell. At this point, he’d go for the knife, if he could get to it.

Grasping at control, Sam stares at Thing 1. “So, what’s taking your boss so long, then? Do you think he’s gotten cold feet? Or, maybe he got sidetracked by something more interesting?”

That taunt earns him a blow to the solar plexus, which Sam supposes is better than another cut, but it leaves him gasping for breath.

Thing 1 smirks at him, but a look of uncertainty crosses his face, too. He turns to look at Thing 2, and both of them let go of Sam, walk to the center of the room, and just stand there, staring.

Sam doesn’t know what’s going on, but since it gets his tormentors to move away from him, he doesn’t much care. He figures this is the one chance he’s likely going to get. The only trouble is, he’s still having trouble breathing.

Also, at least one of the demons is still holding him still with a psychic hold, so Sam is still immobile. Which means he can’t go for the knife, so the exorcism ritual is the only option open to him. The chances of success are not high, but he has to try.

Staring at the backs of the demons’ heads, Sam gasps for breath, and begins, saying the ritual as softly as he dares to avoid drawing attention to himself. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas...”

The demons jerk in place and go rigid. “...omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica...”

Puffs of black smoke start leaking from the two demons mouths, and their hands go to their throats as they cough. The power holding him in place lets him go, and Sam collapses to the floor. He’s weaker from blood loss than he’d realized, but he tries his best to crawl as far away from the two demons as he can, and closer to the knife, while still reciting.

“Ergo draco maledicte et sectio  
Ergo draco maledicte et legio secta diabolica...”

As one, the two demons turn on Sam, and he tries to speed up the ritual’s words, but it’s no good. Even though they are stumbling as they move, due to being half exorcised, they still manage to slap a psychic gag over Sam’s mouth before he can get another phrase out. Freed from his psychic restraints, though, Sam fights them with everything he has.

Unfortunately, dizzy from blood loss, it isn’t enough. His blows hardly seem to affect them, now that the exorcism has stopped. Eventually, Thing 2 manages to immobilize him. Sam is still down on his knees, the second demon behind him on his knees as well, holding Sam’s arms behind his back.

Sam tries to break free, but he’s held in place by more than the demon’s strength; he’s held in place by power. Again. Thing 1 strokes his face, and Sam can’t even move enough to jerk away from that. “Where did you learn that little ritual? And, what made you think to use it on us? Perhaps we’d better look more closely into who killed our friends out there.”

Keeping his face composed, Sam stares at the demon in front of him. “I like Latin, and I have a good memory. I read anything Latin I can get my hands on, and I wasn’t sure what you were, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Well, couldn’t hurt me, anyway. I was really hoping it would kill you.”

Snarling, the demon backhands Sam. Hard. “If we didn’t have our orders about you true love couples, I’d kill you right now for that. Instead, since you like using your mouth so much, I’m going to help you keep it occupied.”

Seeing the demon undoing his pants, Sam seals his lips together. The demon grabs his chin and pulls down. Sam resists, but he can feel the strength of the grip, and knows that the demon will break his jaw to get what he wants.

Pressing his lips together mutinously, Sam decides he doesn’t care. He isn’t about to give in. Then, the second demon reaches around to his front and punches him in the stomach again. Sam’s breath whooshes out, and his jaw slackens.

Not wasting a second, the demon in front of him shoves in all the way, not caring when Sam gags. Grabbing Sam’s hair, he doesn’t waste any time in starting to fuck in and out of Sam’s mouth. Sam can feel the bile rising in his throat, and he desperately tries to keep it down.

Not so much because he’d mind throwing up on the demon, but that he doesn’t think the demon will stop, and Sam doesn’t want to choke on his own vomit. For the first time, Sam hates that he keeps his hair long. It makes too much of a convenient handle for the demon to hold onto.

Desperate to disassociate himself from what’s happening, made so much worse by how helpless he feels, Sam goes with the thought about his hair, times when it had felt nice. The most recent had been earlier that evening.

He’d enjoyed it so much when Gabriel’s hands had slid into his hair out in the main room of the club. No, he can’t go with that train of thought. Sam banishes those thoughts before they can go any further. He doesn’t want them tainted by what’s happening. Thinking of Gabriel, however, does make him start to wonder where the Archangel is.

Could the Demon of Lust have defeated him? Is he lying out there hurting? Maybe...maybe he’d gone off and left Sam here. Maybe Sam had been a fool to trust him even a small amount. No, he refuses to believe that. Gabriel had done a lot of nasty things to him and Dean in the past, but never with any real intent to harm. He’d always been trying to help.

A hard thrust makes Sam choke again, and does away with his efforts to divorce himself from what’s happening to him. Trapped in front and behind by the demons, held in place by their bodies and their power, Sam can’t move a muscle they don’t want him to move. So, he feels and hears Thing 2 unzipping his pants, but Sam can’t even flinch or tighten up his ass to prevent the intrusion.

To do what he wants to do, though, Thing 2 can’t have Sam’s hands pulled behind Sam’s back anymore. Instead, the demon moves them to Sam’s sides. But...he only pins them in place with his strength. Which leaves Sam some wiggle room.

Using his freedom of movement, slight as it is, to its full advantage, Sam stretches his fingers out to their full extent, and tries to see if he can feel the knife. He knows he’s pinned very close to where he put it.

Moving carefully, both to avoid detection and to keep from accidentally sliding the weapon further away from him, Sam cheers internally when he feels cold steel against the tips of his questing fingers. In counterpoint to what’s happening to him externally.

Tears of rage and pain stream down Sam’s face, as the demon pushes in further. Dry and completely unprepared, Sam can feel his skin tearing around the demon’s erection. He doesn’t think that Thing 2 is very far in, yet, because he hasn’t felt the flared edges of the head, but Sam still feels as though he’s being split into two, and his entire focus is centered on the literal pain in his ass.

Even more than what the demons are doing to him, it hurts to move for the knife slowly, wanting to have it, use it right now, but knowing if he gives himself away too soon, he’ll lose his one and only chance to stop this. Excruciatingly slowly, Sam uses the tips of his fingers to drag the knife closer, so he can get a good grip on it.

Filthy words fall from Thing 1’s mouth, still standing above him and thrusting his cock down Sam’s throat, a complete opposite of the silent demon forcing Sam’s ass to open around him.

Thing 1 tells Sam exactly what they’re going to do to him, how much they’re going to make him hurt before they finally kill him. Sam already knows, though. He’s seen the victims they’d left behind. The recitation isn’t for his benefit, however, because it is obviously exciting the demon. The more details he gives, the more his thrusts speed up and get more erratic.

The last thing Sam wants to do is swallow, but knows that he’ll have to, to keep from choking. He looks up, putting all of his rage and hate into his eyes. It doesn’t seem to do anything except excite Thing 1 even more.

Sam can see the orgasm approaching in the slackening of the demon’s expression, and he braces himself to do what he has to in spite of the pain in his ass and jaw, not to mention his numerous wounds.

Finally, his fingers manage to grasp the knife. He has to force himself not to react as he gets a solid grip. Knowing he’s only going to get the one chance, he grips it as tightly as possible because his fingertips are feeling a little numb, and bends his wrist, driving the blade up into the side of Thing 2 behind him. Sam feels it slide past two ribs.

Because of his lack of mobility, the blade doesn’t sink as deeply as he’d like, and it isn’t a killing blow. However, the injured demon does scream, his first sound of the night, and his dick shrinks inside of Sam, slipping out, and providing a relief to the burning pain. Even better, Sam’s arms are now free of their restraints entirely.

Cursing, Thing 1 pulls out of Sam’s mouth, still close enough for the tip of his dick to almost be brushing Sam’s mouth, and raises his hand. With Thing 1’s razor sharp nails, Sam knows that’ll be it for him, he’ll be out of the fight, probably dead. He has some of his mobility back, however, and he isn’t without defenses of his own anymore.

Raising one arm in preparation to block whatever blow Thing 1 hopes to land, Sam twists and pulls the knife out of Thing 2, raising it up in the hopes of being able to land his own blow. Before he has to, a strong wind moves through the room, and everything changes.

The wind blows around Sam, but doesn’t touch him. It does blow Thing 1 and Thing 2 into a wall, however, and the psychic restraints on Sam’s legs disappear as soon as Thing 1 hits the hard surface. With nothing directly in front of him to fight, Sam slumps over, pain and blood loss making it hard to move.

Gathering his resolve, Sam forces himself to look up; to find out just what is going on. Still kneeling, as he’s fairly certain that he can’t stand, yet, Sam sees that Gabriel has arrived. Almost as bloody as Sam, he looks wild-eyed, and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d say Gabriel looks almost panicked.

Their eyes meet across the room, and Sam can see Gabriel’s flash in fury, promising retribution. Sam wants his own retribution for what had happened to Gabriel. Unfortunately, since Gabriel is here, Sam feels that he’s unlikely to get it.

If Gabriel hadn’t killed Asmodeus, then he wouldn’t be here, so Sam’s chance for making him pay for hurting Gabriel is gone. Holding Gabriel’s gaze, Sam tries to convey his displeasure at that, and at the same time tries to reassure Gabriel that he isn’t on death’s door. Gabriel seems to get the messages, or at least one of them, because in the next second, he’s across the room with Thing 1 and Thing 2 in his hands.

And, except for that first burst of power that got the demons away from Sam, he seems to be fighting them the human way. Except, with an angel’s strength. Thing 2 is fairing especially badly, his wound leaking black smoke, and Sam is glad he’d managed to seriously damage him. It makes him feel a little less like a victim of his own failure.

Watching Gabriel in motion mesmerizes Sam for several moments, too. Makes him forget the pain and dizziness he’s feeling. Fists flying, legs kicking, coat billowing around him, Gabriel has the demons reduced to a moaning mess in less than a minute.

A third demon is unconscious, or dead, on the floor by the door. Sam isn’t sure where that one came from, and as the demon isn’t a threat at the moment, Sam is pretty sure he doesn’t care. Perhaps Asmodeus had summoned help, and that’s why Gabriel had been gone so long.

Trying to stand, to help, Sam stumbles, and barely manages to keep himself from falling face first into the floor. Gabriel must catch the movement from the corner of his eye, because as Sam stumbles, Gabriel instantly stops trying to make the demons resemble raw meat, and plants a hand on each of their heads.

Standing there between the two demons, Gabriel is surrounded by the dense black smoke that erupts from each host’s mouth. It never touches him though, is incapable of tarnishing him.

As the smoke roils around in a small area of the room, as if trapped, Gabriel takes his hands off the heads of the now empty hosts, and a stream of light cascades from his hands, hitting the smoke. Sam can hear screams fill the air, and then the smoke is just gone. Not gone through the floor gone, just...gone.

Sam looks at Gabriel in awe, and tries to stand again, but still falters, stretching out a hand to try and steady himself, keep himself upright. He fails. Before he can hit the ground, however, Gabriel is there. Catching him. Keeping him from falling.

Then, there’s a flash of bright white light filling the room, almost as if Gabriel is trying to wash it clean. When the light clears, they aren’t in that room anymore. Instead, they are in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows showing the sun setting over a vast expanse of water.

 

Hawaii

Gazing out at the water first, Sam slowly looks down at his apparently healed self, now dressed in sweat pants and a loose t-shirt. He sees no evidence of wounds, and feels none of the pain that he should, considering everything that had just happened.

When he finally looks up, he sees Gabriel watching him in a very unGabriel-like way. Very serious and regretful. Seeing Gabriel look like that seems to make everything that happened more real, and Sam stiffens his muscles, trying to keep his body’s desire to shake at bay.

“This is my safe haven, Sam. If you want, though, I can take you anywhere you want to--” Gabriel breaks off as Sam vehemently shakes his head in the negative.

A blanket is snapped up and thrown over his shoulders, and Gabriel guides him over to lie down on the bed in the room. Sam doesn’t know if it was already here, or if Gabriel just zapped it up, too. Sam doesn’t think he’s taking in much right now. He wonders if he’s going into shock. Which seems silly since Gabriel saw fit to heal him. Silently, he orders himself to calm down, but the shaking starts to escape his control.

Crawling onto the bed behind him, Gabriel half sits half reclines, propped up by the headboard behind him. He pulls Sam up, until Sam’s head is lying against one shoulder, and Sam’s shaking eases slightly as he does so.

After a moment, Sam hears a soft fluttering of wings, and he feels himself enclosed, a light weight pressing against his body. Feathers brush softly against his cheeks. He wants to see them, but can’t because he can’t summon the will to open his eyes and move from where he is. They might be invisible again, anyway. Instead of feeling trapped, hemmed in, Sam feels safe. Protected.

It’s a long time before Sam stops shaking completely, but when Gabriel starts sifting a hand gently through his hair, Sam gradually feels himself relaxing, feels the awful events of the last hour fading enough for him to fall asleep.

If he has a restless night, Sam isn’t aware of it. In fact, it’s been a long time since he remembers sleeping so deeply or so well. When he wakes up in the morning, he has several moments of drifting in a lazy lassitude. Enough for him to become aware of his morning wood, and that he’s pressed up against the side of someone’s body. Without thought, his hands start roaming and he presses his hard-on into the leg next to him.

It’s when his hands don’t encounter the expected breasts, and he feels the soft caress of feathers when the person shifts, that the night comes crashing back into him. With horror, Sam realizes he’s humping an angel, and he scrambles back, off of the bed.

Standing there awkwardly, hands trying, and failing, to cover the tent in his loose sweat pants, Sam looks everywhere but at the angel still lying on the bed.

“Sam--”

Too mortified to be willing to listen just then, Sam cuts Gabriel off. “Bathroom?” He can’t help his voice rising to a slightly panicked level, and when it looks like Gabriel is going to try and keep him there, he cuts him off again. “ _Please_?”

With a sigh, the Archangel points and a door that hadn’t been there before suddenly appears. Right, what would an angel need with a bathroom? Trying not to think about it too much, Sam gratefully goes through it. When he gets there, he thinks about jerking off into some tissues, but he can’t do that with Gabriel so close. Sam knows he’d never be able to be quiet enough.

Taking out his erection, Sam leans the forearm of his other arm against the wall and hangs his head, willing his hard-on away so he can empty his bladder. The adrenaline rush from moments before clears the last of the sleep form his mind, and memories of what had happened in that small room last night start bombarding him.

Instead of pushing them away again, he lets them wash over him. They get rid of his problem very quickly. Surprisingly, facing them also makes them lose some of their potency. That realization helps Sam relax even more.

After taking care of business, Sam washes his hands, runs his wet hands over his hair, trying to flatten his spectacular head of bedhair, and scrubs some toothpaste over his teeth with a finger. After that, he can’t think of any other reason to delay facing Gabriel.

Refusing to go out there and act like a victim, as he felt he had last night, Sam straightens his shoulders and walks out with his head held high.

Still looking uncharacteristically serious, Gabriel props himself up in the bed when Sam comes back in. “How are you feeling this morning?”

Not really sure of the answer, Sam shrugs, but then feels rude after everything Gabriel had done to help him. “More human, I guess. Thanks, by the way.” At Gabriel’s uncomprehending look, Sam elaborates. “For saving me. Healing me. I might not have gotten out of there alive, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“If it hadn’t been for--” Gabriel cuts himself off, and looks away, out towards the ocean who’s reds and oranges are transforming into blue as the sun rises higher in the sky.

When Gabriel looks back, his face is wiped clean of emotion, which Sam finds very disconcerting and unnatural. “Why don’t we put last night aside until you’ve had a chance to eat. You’re probably hungry.”

Until Gabriel had mentioned it, Sam wasn’t, but now that his lack of food in the last twelve hours has been brought to attention, his stomach rumbles demandingly. Sam’s cheeks redden slightly at the sound he can’t control, but Gabriel just looks amused, and snaps his fingers.

A small table pops into existence right beside the large bedroom window, with a tray of food. Sam can see juice, a bowl of tropical fruit, and an egg white omelet waiting for him. The omelet still warm enough to show steam rising from it.

Hurrying over and sitting down, Sam looks at Gabriel with a smile of appreciation. “How do you know my favorite breakfast?”

A small mischievous look flashes across Gabriel’s face. “I’ve read all of the Winchester Gospels, of course.”

The look is gone quickly, so Sam isn’t sure that he’d actually seen it, but Gabriel’s answer makes him choke on a sip of juice. When he gets his voice back, he looks at Gabriel with disbelief. “Why would you read those?”

“I had to read the original source material the fandom was based on. I wouldn’t have understood any of the fanfics, otherwise.”

That causes an even bigger coughing fit. “You’ve read those? God! Never mind, don’t tell me about them. I don’t want to know which ones.”

Sam is glad that Gabriel is gaining back some of his normal personality. He doesn’t know why the Archangel has been so serious, but it hasn’t been enjoyable. He wishes that he could have picked a different topic to start teasing him on, though. The fandom around the Supernatural books was just--

“C’mon, Sammy. I’m sure you’d love hearing about some of the stories I’ve read. You’d get a kick out of hearing some of the things that happen to you. Some of those women sure do love to see you hurt.”

Appetite suddenly gone, Sam pushes his food away, but then doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or where to look. “Yeah, well, they really would have loved last night, then.”

There is total silence from the bed Gabriel is still lounging on, but it only lasts for seconds. Gabriel is by his side the next instant. Not walking over, just appearing. Another chair is zapped up, and Gabriel sits down kittycorner to Sam.

Gabriel reaches out before Sam can move, and takes his hand. It looks like serious Gabriel is back. Sam tries to move his hand, but Gabriel isn’t letting go. “I’m sorry, Sam. That was insensitive of me.”

“You’re creeping me out, Gabriel. I’ve never seen you so serious for so long. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop; to find out what the practical joke is.”

The grip on Sam’s hand tightens. “I allowed you to get hurt last night. It took me longer to defeat Asmodeus than I thought it would. He was much more powerful than he ever has been before, and he was able to summon some help. Then, those damn sigils on your ribs kept me from finding you right away. As much power as I have, I couldn’t keep you from harm.”

The Archangel’s concern sends tingles through Sam, and warms him up. He hadn’t even realized he was feeling cold, but then he realizes it’s all on the inside. “Last night was...unpleasant, but I’ve lived through an awful lot of pain, both physical and otherwise. Hell, some of it you’ve put me through. So, I don’t understand why you’re feeling guilty about a little torture and attempted rape that happened on a case, especially since you’ve healed me up as good as new, and saved me from worse.”

Gabriel’s hand let’s go of Sam’s, and rises to his temple, tapping two fingers against Sam’s skull. “You know why I did what I did with Dean. I was trying to help you, teach you something. I know it hurt, but it was necessary. Last night wasn’t necessary. And, from where I was standing, it looked like you were rescuing yourself when I arrived. You didn’t really need me, but I couldn’t stand back and just wait for you to finish killing them.”

Breaking off, Gabriel takes a deep breath and licks his lips, and Sam sees what he thinks is torment in the Archangel’s eyes. “It should never have happened, and I might have healed your body, but not your mind. You still have the memories. Do you want me to...”

The meaning of Gabriel’s question is clear when he taps at Sam’s temple again. Sam bats his hand away in horror. “No! No, I can’t let you do that. It’s a slippery slope I don’t want to start down. As bad as some of my memories are, they make me who I am. You take one away, and I don’t know who I’ll be anymore.”

Pushing away from the table, Sam stands and leans against the window, looking out at the sky that continues to lighten, and the ocean that is so calm and blue right now that he feels as if he could see to the bottom of the world. “What happened was...awful, and if I hadn’t been able to get ahold of that knife and injure one of them, I would have felt... Well, I would have felt pretty bad.”

Rolling his shoulders a little, Sam turns his body on the glass until he can see Gabriel. “I don’t know if it’s that you healed me last night or this beautifully peaceful place you brought me to, but I’m feeling better than I would have expected.”

Shrugging, Sam turns to look back out at the water, feeling the truthfulness of what he’d told Gabriel fill him. He has some new memories that he’d rather not have, but he can live with them. He doesn’t think last night’s experiences changed him too much.

Although, again that isn’t the full truth. He thinks one of the reasons he’s feeling alright is Gabriel. Not necessarily anything Gabriel has done so far, but just him being here. He remembers what Thing 1 had said about true love. Maybe that’s why he’s feeling pretty good right now, and not a mess of nerves. He isn’t sure. Can a person be in love, and not even know it? When could it have happened? Until yesterday, he would have told anyone who asked that he hated Gabriel.

After all the things the Archangel had put him and Dean through, how could he feel anything else, really? It doesn’t make sense that he’s in love with Gabriel; maybe Asmodeus had been wrong.

The thought is pure desperation, and Sam knows it. As much as he wants to believe it, to deny the knowledge, now that it’s been brought to his attention he can feel it inside of himself. It’s why he’d been able to let go with Gabriel while dancing. It was why he agreed to allow the Archangel to help in the first place.

Neither he nor Dean trusted easily, and yet he’d trusted Gabriel with his back, with his _life_ , last night with hardly a thought and without a doubt in his mind. He’d gotten on his knees for him, twice, and _liked_ it both times.

And that is a thought that his mind skitters away from even more than the thought of true love. In classic Winchester avoidance, Sam latches on to the question Gabriel asked him so much last night. Why had Gabriel come to offer his help?

He thought he’d gotten the simple answer last night. As hard as it had been to believe, Gabriel seemed to want him. A hard enough concept to wrap his mind around given the kind of person Sam is, what he’s done, especially last year. Even more than wanting, though, Gabriel seems to return his feelings.

After Sam hadn’t reacted to the dropping of Gabriel’s shields, Gabriel had tried dropping them for himself, too. He hadn’t had any more reaction than Sam had. Which means not only does he apparently feel true love for Sam, but he knows Sam feels it for him.

He hasn’t said anything, though. He’d also said it wasn’t the right time for that conversation, last night. Which, it really hadn’t been. Maybe he feels it’s too soon, too. That thought sends a wave of relief through Sam. He needs time to come to terms with this, to figure out what it means for himself. How, if, it’s going to change anything. If it should. He definitely isn’t ready to talk about it, yet. Maybe in a week, a month, after the apocalypse, if they both survive, but not now.

Lost in gathering his thoughts, Sam doesn’t hear Gabriel move, and given the abilities of angels maybe Gabriel hadn’t actually moved. Therefore, the first indication Sam has that Gabriel isn’t at the table anymore, is the hand that rests against his lower back as Sam looks out over the ocean. “I told you the fanfic writers like to make you hurt, but I didn’t tell you that most of them also like to fix it by the end, and give you a happy ending. I’m starting to see the appeal of that part.”

Shaking his head, Sam doesn’t take his eyes off the undulating water. “A happy ending? I know what I just said about last night, but how do you think any kind of happy ending will be possible for me? I’ve drunk demon blood, I’ve killed and been the cause of the deaths of innocent people, and I’m the vessel of the King of Hell himself. Where does a happy ending come into play?”

Gabriel slides his hand up Sam’s back, and lets it rest on his shoulder. “Who of us can say we’ve been unaffected by what’s been happening in the world? No one escapes from life unscathed, Sam. Not if they actually live their lives. I don’t know how a happy ending will come about for you, but I’d still like to see you get one.”

Holding his breath, Sam waits to see if Gabriel will bring up what Asmodeus’s power revealed about their feelings for each other last night. Almost expecting it, he’s startled when instead there’s a soft fluttering sound and feathers are brushing the back of his neck.

Heart suddenly galloping in his chest, Sam freezes where he is. He’s sensed or felt Gabriel’s wings several times in the last half day, but he hasn’t been able to see them yet. He wants to so badly, but he’s afraid they’ll disappear, or prove to be an illusion if he moves too fast.

Taking a shuddering breath in, Sam slowly turns in place. His, “Wow,” is hushed, little more than breathed out. Gabriel’s shirt is gone, and his wings are things of beauty, shimmering a little, as though Sam can’t see them all. Like they exist on more than one plane of existence, maybe.

Sweeping up towards the ceiling, from the middle of Gabriel’s muscled back, Sam figures they extend at least ten feet in every direction. Because of the shimmering, it’s hard to tell exactly. It could be more. While he traces their outline, Gabriel slowly folds them back in against his body.

Watching Gabriel for any hint that it isn’t okay, Sam reaches out carefully to the rounded top of one wing, over a foot above Gabriel’s head, and trails a finger through feathers that are so white they are almost blinding. Sam feels as though his eyes should hurt looking at them, but they don’t. In fact, when he looks at them from the corner of his eye, he gets the impression of many other colors. Too many to name.

Gabriel closes his eyes and sighs out as Sam grows bolder when he isn’t stopped. Spreading his fingers apart, he threads them through the feathers and thrills at the silky touch of them along the sensitive web at the base of each finger. They are softer than any bird’s feather Sam’s ever touched. The urge to bare skin to feel them over more of his body is strong, but Sam fights it.

Not wanting to break the cone of silence that has descended around them, Sam isn’t sure what Gabriel wants from him, why Sam’s being given this gift. He keeps his voice as quiet as he can. “What should I do, Gabriel?”

Instead of answering, at first, Gabriel slides a palm down Sam’s arm, making Sam shiver, encircles Sam’s wrist with his fingers, and leads him to the bed. Letting go of Sam, Gabriel crawls to the middle of the mattress, and Sam has to swallow hard at how graceful Gabriel makes the normally awkward movement look.

Stopping in the middle of the bed, slim body sinking just slightly into the soft mattress, Gabriel looks over his shoulder at Sam and smiles. “C’mon, Sam. Get up here with me. I want you to do just what you were doing, I just want us to be more comfortable while you do it, and make it easier for you to reach every spot.”

Breathing in deeply, Sam nods and works his way to where Gabriel is sitting. He knows he doesn’t make the process look nearly as graceful, and he tries not to blush when he feels Gabriel’s eyes on him. At least he manages to cover the distance without face-planting into the bed.

Tentatively cupping the cusp of Gabriel’s left shoulder with one hand for support, Sam gently threads the fingers of his other hand through the feathers on the right wing. “Is this what you want, Gabriel?”

A contented rumble is the only reply Sam gets, so he figures he must be doing something right. Starting off from over a foot behind Gabriel, Sam quickly moves closer, wanting to really be able to sink his fingers into the layers of feathers.

Close enough that his front is almost touching the wings arching out of Gabriel’s back, Sam really wishes he dared take off his shirt. With every second that goes by, the desire to feel Gabriel’s wings against his bare skin grows stronger. Instead, he concentrates on the slide of feathers between his fingers, of moving steadily around each wing, trying to be as thorough as possible.

He also experiments to see what kind of movement gets the best reaction from Gabriel. Short strokes, that just go the length of one feather, or a broad sweeping of his hand, covering as much ground as his arm can reach.

He plays with pressure as well, soft and hard versions of each kind of stroke. The answer seems to be short strokes that cover the length of a full-size feather, with a firm pressure. At least, judging from the way Gabriel arches into those more than any other.

Getting lost in the rhythm of the strokes, Sam begins to be aware of something else besides the silkiness of the feathers. A song or music that he can feel more than hear. He strains his ears, but still it’s more a feeling that vibrates through his skin, making the tips of his fingers tingle.

His cock, already hard from the sensual grooming, almost throbs to the beat he can’t quite hear. It’s enticing and frustrating at the same time, and he finally breaks the silence they’ve been under since they both got on the bed. “Gabriel, what’s the song I can almost hear as I comb through your feathers?”

Gabriel’s body, which had been feeling almost pliant under Sam’s ministrations, suddenly goes rigid. “What did you say?” Gabriel doesn’t turn to look at him, but Sam can tell that he now has the Archangel’s undivided attention. Not that he hadn’t before, but it feels as though it’s on a whole new level, now.

Trying to think of what the problem could be, Sam gives up after a few seconds, and tries to explain himself a little more. “Every time I slide my fingers into your feathers, I can almost hear a song. Only...it’s more a feeling than anything else. And, while I’m thinking of it, how does a being that was created before any other living creature have feathers like a bird?”

Once he begins releasing his curiosity, Sam finds it hard to stop. He isn’t even sure where all the questions are coming from. “Did God like the wings He created for you so much that he decided to reproduce them in miniature for birds? And why do your wings shimmer? Is that a design flaw that God corrected when He created birds? Why does the shimmer make it look as though your wings aren’t all here? Do you--”

Sam breaks off when Gabriel turns and grips his head. His eyes widen at how animated and excited the expression on Gabriel’s face looks. Gabriel’s eyes are open so wide his eyebrows have almost disappeared into his hair, his nostrils are flaring out with every breath, and his mouth is slightly open, as if he wants to say something but can’t decide on what.

Bowing his head forward, Gabriel rests his forehead against Sam’s chin, and Sam can feel him take several deep breaths. When he finally looks up, Sam finds it hard to meet the intense look in his eyes. “Do you have any idea how rare...no, of course you don’t. Why would you? Even after last night, when I dropped my shields... What you can see and hear, without my help is just...”

Getting frustrated at Gabriel’s lack of coherency, Sam moves his head back and gives him one of what Dean has named his bitchy looks. “You’re babbling, Gabriel. What’s going on? Why can’t you finish a sentence?”

Making an obvious effort at pulling himself together, Gabriel shakes his head and sighs. “What you’re sensing is my wings true manifestation. It’s extremely rare for a human to get a glimpse of them as they really are, and without help, you’ve seen more of my true wings than any human has in generations.”

Feeling a surge of shame, Sam looks away. “It’s probably the demon blood in--”

“No!” Gabriel puts a hand under Sam’s chin, and raises his face back up. “Nothing of demon can see an angel’s true wings. Not even a hint. Whatever you’re seeing is all you.”

Trying to contain a pleased smile that starts twitching his lips, trying to break free, and fighting a blush at the admiration in Gabriel’s eyes, Sam looks at Gabriel hopefully. “So, what are your wings, then? Do they have feathers at all?”

“If you’ll allow it, I can show you. Even with my help, most humans wouldn’t be able to see much, if anything, but I have a feeling you’ll be different in that, as well.”

Biting his lower lip, Sam nods his head eagerly. “Please.”

Looking grave, Gabriel reaches up to put his hands on Sam’s face, much as he had last night in the club. He closes his eyes, and Sam hurries to mimic him. A small gasp passes Sam’s lips, as his mind is suddenly infused with light.

Scrambling to make sense of what he’s seeing, Sam feels his body fall against Gabriel’s, but the Archangel holds him easily, and then lowers them both so they are reclining on the bed, side-by-side. Slowly, Sam’s mind starts to see a shape amidst all the brightness.

Awe fills his thoughts, as he takes in the scope of Gabriel’s wings. They are two or three times the size of what he’d seen earlier, and there is a sense of feathers still, but that may be just a memory.

What he is actually seeing is the shape of wings, except they are completely comprised of light, shimmering with every color of the rainbow, as well as a few colors Sam doesn’t even have names for.

Sounds are surrounding him as well. The music Sam had sensed before swells and expands, until Sam can feel it throughout his body, thrumming through him in a tune that seems as if it should be familiar, but he knows he’s never heard it before.

There are scents as well, but they are so subtle compared to the light and the music, that Sam almost hadn’t noticed them. Now that he has, he tries to separate them, but finds he can’t. They are too intertwined. They blend together in a harmonious whole, that immediately makes Sam think of Gabriel, even though he can’t pinpoint why.

Mentally lifting his face to bask in everything that he’s experiencing, he notices a thin thread of light leading upwards, and disappearing. He looks at it in curiosity. ‘What’s that?’

A sense of embarrassment and wonder comes from Gabriel, and it makes Sam even more curious. ‘The best word for it is a siphon, I guess. I can’t believe you can sense that, too. When I started looking for you, I actually searched for Castiel, as I figured the three of you would be together, and he doesn’t have sigils protecting him.’

‘Did you find him? Is he okay? We’ve been so worried, especially Dean.’

Somehow, Gabriel manages to convey a chuckle over their linked minds. ‘He was in pretty bad shape when I found him, but I’ve been feeding him some of my Grace, to build his strength back up. I’ve had to do it slowly, so I don’t deplete myself, but he’s doing much better. He’s healing well, and he’s regained some of his power. I felt him tip over the edge from still being in danger to being on the mend sometime during the night.’

‘I’m glad you were able to help him.’ Sam feels guilt surge through him. “Helping us hasn’t proven healthy for most, are you sure you want to join up?’

‘Yes.’ Said within the landscape of Gabriel’s mind, Sam can feel the utter truth of the bald-faced reply. He feels a shuddering breath expand his chest, and for the first time Sam can actually believe that what Asmodeus’s power had revealed last night is true.

Reaching in both mind and body for Gabriel, Sam shudders when Gabriel does the same. All at once he’s surrounded by the light, music, and scents, while at the same time Gabriel is wrapping strong arms around him and pulling him in for a kiss.

Sam does not whimper when Gabriel’s tongue slips into his mouth. He doesn’t. However, he will admit to a manly sigh when Gabriel starts to slowly withdraw from his mind, and he can fully see with his eyes again.

Said eyes widen when the Archangel pulls back until his face is a few inches from Sam’s. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you, but I’ve done my best, from a distance, to help you walk the road you are destined for. Which means I had to keep my hands to myself. Your brother helped open my eyes, though, and I’m done with that. I’m going to do everything I can to help, and I want to be more hands on about it. If that means I get to be hands on with you, so much the better.”  
Gabriel’s expression turns to one of wonder and awe. “After what we just experienced together, the fact that you can see my true wings...I can’t even express how much that means, how long it’s been... “ Breaking off, Gabriel steals Sam’s breath with another kiss. For several brief, exquisite seconds, Sam loses himself in desire. He opens his mouth, and returns each stroke of Gabriel’s tongue with one of his own.

Seemingly overwhelmed, Gabriel slowly pulls away. “If you don’t want anything to happen between us, then you’d better get off this bed right now, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you go afterwards.”

In response, Sam slides an arm between Gabriel’s shoulder and the bed. Then, rolling them until he’s on top, then he lowers his mouth and licks his way past Gabriel’s lips.

For several minutes, Sam takes his time, and explores Gabriel’s tongue, along the ridges of his teeth, even tickles the roof of his mouth. Reaching down, he gets a hand under the Archangel’s back, momentarily disconcerted to find the wings gone, and pulls the smaller frame up, wanting to feel as much of Gabriel against him as possible, but not wanting to crush him under Sam’s greater weight.

Lowering Gabriel back down, separating their mouths reluctantly, Sam is just about to start working his way down the tempting chest, when he finds their positions abruptly reversed. Sam is on his back again, and looking up at Gabriel’s lips now twisted in a small smirk.

Sam lets uncertainly show through in his expression. “Gabriel, I’m not sure... I know what our roles were last night, but I... Well, I should do some research about submission, and find out--”

Cut off with a hard but brief kiss, Sam can only blink up at Gabriel, feeling bemused. “There doesn’t need to be any labels between us. All we need to do, is what feels good to the both of us. Tell me, without thinking about it too much, what were your favorite parts of last night?”

The answer is spoken before Sam even realizes it. “Dancing with you, then later, when you were holding my head...” Trailing off, Sam takes a deep breath, but doesn’t drop his eyes from Gabriel’s.

Surging over Sam’s body, Gabriel spears a hand into Sam’s hair. “Let me do this.” Sam opens his mouth to say something, although he isn’t sure what, but finds it quickly covered by Gabriel’s hand. “Let me do this so that I can show you it can be good. So I can show you that Trickster I may be, I am completely serious about this.”

Taking a deep breath, Sam nods, and Gabriel smiles and then bends his head to start running his lips over Sam’s chest. Sam thinks about stopping him, of protesting, but then Gabriel’s teeth glide over a spot that steals all thoughts from his head, and has blood rushing southward. Instead, Sam arches his back and grabs Gabriel’s head, threading his fingers into the Archangel’s hair. Not guiding. Just holding.

As much as he wants to, there isn’t much more he can touch as Gabriel moves down his body. Sam isn’t used to not being the one in control in bed, but Gabriel is stirring things up inside him that he’s never felt before. Nerve endings that he didn’t know he had are waking up.

By the time Gabriel is licking along the crease where his thigh and hip meet, Sam is moaning quietly, planting his feet on the bed, but just barely managing to keep from thrusting his hips into the air.

“I want you to wait and come when I’m inside you, so hold on through this.” That’s all the warning Sam gets before his cock is engulfed in Gabriel’s hot mouth. No. Incendiary mouth.

His hips do thrust up then, just once before he forces them to stop, but Gabriel doesn’t seem to mind. He rides the thrust better than a champion bull rider does a bucking bronco. It’s all Sam can do not to come on the spot, but he remembers what Gabriel had said and manages to stave off the rapidly building feeling in his balls by reciting his time tables.

It’s much harder to remember the answers to just the ones than he thought it would be, but it does the trick, and he feels himself veer away from the brink. At least until he feels a thumb sliding along behind his balls.

The feeling makes him twitch, and he jumps when it reaches the entrance to his body. Gabriel doesn’t stop sucking, but with his free hand, he strokes Sam’s thigh calmingly. Sam props himself up on his elbows so he can watch, see some of what Gabriel is doing.

At first, Gabriel just rubs over the tightly furled muscle. It feels good, better than Sam thought it would. His one and only previous experience with being prepped hadn’t started like this. He can feel how the small touches are having an effect, though; relaxing and loosening that clenched muscle. When Gabriel starts to push past, Sam has a flashback of last night, of being at Thing 2’s mercy.

Before Sam has time to tense up or push Gabriel away, however, Gabriel is doing something with his tongue around the head of Sam’s cock. The pleasure sparks up and down Sam’s spine, and he moans, thrusting his hips up. Trying to get more. All caught up in feeling, not thinking.

By the time coherent thought returns, Gabriel is moving his fully sheathed thumb in and out. The slide is slick and easy, and Sam isn’t sure when Gabriel had a chance to get lube...although, for a being with the power of resurrection, a little lube probably isn’t difficult.

What gets to Sam more than the slickness, is the absence of pain. Not even because of last night, but because his brief experience with this in the past is that it was at least uncomfortable.

Almost as if he’s read Sam’s mind, although Sam trusts Gabriel to keep his word, so he knows that isn’t it, Gabriel slides his mouth off of Sam’s cock with a pop and smiles up at him wickedly. “One of the benefits of being with an Archangel, Sam. I can take away any discomfort and pain.”

As Gabriel rises up from between his thighs, Sam pushes from his elbows to his hands, trying to meet him halfway. Their mouths crush into a kiss that turns messy when Gabriel replaces his thumb with two fingers. As they move, scissoring him open, Sam gasps and moans into the kiss, trying to suck on Gabriel’s tongue. Feeling more naked and exposed with the new sensations than he ever has at just the absence of clothes.

All hope of coordination is lost when Gabriel presses up against a spot that Sam has heard about, but never experienced. Breath hitching in at the massaging motions Gabriel is making, Sam drops back down onto the bed, letting his legs fall open, giving Gabriel unfettered access to his body.

When Gabriel doesn’t let up from stimulating that spot inside of him, Sam can only shiver and moan. He tries to thrust down, wanting more, but he can’t even tell if he’s succeeding. He’s too lost in sensation, the silky sheets feeling rough on his sensitized skin. “Oh, Sam! Look at you. I wanted to draw this out for you, wanted to take you right to the brink, but I can’t wait anymore.”

Sam hears the words, but doesn’t take them in. All he knows is that the fingers are sliding out, and being immediately replaced by something thicker, blunter. Again, there is no pain, only pleasure as he feels Gabriel push in, in one long slide.

Forcing his eyes open, and not sure when he closed them, Sam tries to focus on Gabriel above him, but the pleasure when his lover starts to move is almost overwhelming. The feeling of fullness, of stretching wide around Gabriel’s thick length, of having it seemingly touch every spot inside of him at once is indescribable. It’s too much, and he knows he won’t be able to hold out for long.

Especially when he senses feathers brush against him, sees light enveloping him. It’s as if he’s being caressed in a thousand spots at the same time. He sees nothing but white, but doesn’t know if it’s the wings, the light, or pure pleasure. Maybe all three.

As he pushes his face into the softness and light, Sam can feel Gabriel shudder around him. Gently reaching around Gabriel’s back, Sam scratches his fingers lightly along the base, where the wings are attached.

This time, it’s Gabriel who cries out, shuddering again even harder than before. Sam can feel Gabriel’s cock pulsing inside of him, and knows the Archangel is coming. The feeling of warm heat spreading through him, filling him up, plus the knowledge that his actions caused it, washes through Sam, and tips him over into his own pleasure.

Full awareness returns slowly, but Sam is in no hurry. He feels too sated, too content to speed his way out of this floating cloud of pleasure. Thoughts of last night, at least the bad bits, feel a thousand miles away. Eventually, he becomes aware enough of the here and now to feel Gabriel lying on top of him, and he lifts his arms to wrap them around his lover, stroking them over his back and into his hair.

Pulling back a few inches, Gabriel looks down at him with a wicked smile. “Humans definitely got the better end of the deal when it comes to sharing yourselves with each other. That was much better than Heaven. What made you realize how sensitive the base of my wings would be?”

Running a lazy finger back over the mentioned area, Sam smiles when Gabriel shivers. “Just that they’re so much a part of you, and you’d already said that they don’t get touched often. I thought it might feel good.”

Gabriel works a hand under Sam’s head, and pulls him up into a kiss. Loving the feel of Gabriel’s tongue in his mouth and not having to hide that fact anymore, Sam eagerly kisses back, chasing Gabriel’s tongue with his own.

In spite of the fact that he hasn’t seen Gabriel consume any candy since yesterday when he had that ice cream shake, the Archangel still tastes sweet, as if his love of treats has infused him completely. Moaning as Gabriel brackets his head in with his arms and plunges his tongue even deeper, Sam knows he could well get addicted to the taste.

It makes Sam wonder if the sweetness infuses other areas of Gabriel’s body. If he wasn’t so satiated right now, he’d try and entice Gabriel into letting him explore so he could find out. He has the feeling he’ll get other chances, though.

For now, he pulls back, and smiles up at Gabriel. “It’s hard to believe that it’s been less than a day since you popped into that motel room, butting into the argument Dean and I--” Sam rears up in shocked realization. “Dean!”

Squirming out from under Gabriel, Sam rolls off the bed and starts frantically looking around for his clothes. Pulling them on as he rants. “He’s going to kill us...well, me anyway. He’s got to have been back for hours, now. Who knows what he’s thinking happened. Damn it! I can’t believe--”

A small, but powerful hand wrapping around his bicep grinds Sam to a halt, cutting off his rant. “Chill, Sam. If it’ll keep you from covering up that delectable body of yours, I’ll take care of it.”

Gabriel’s eyes close, and Sam waits, expecting him to disappear. Instead, moments later, his eyes pop open and his smile turns positively wicked. Which raises the hairs on the back of Sam’s arms. “What did you do, Gabriel?”

“I sent him to Castiel.”

At that, Sam relaxes. “Oh, that’s a good--”

“Naked.”

Sam’s blood feels like it freezes in his veins. “What?! Oh God, tell me you didn’t.”

Gabriel pats his cheek indulgently. “It’s Gabriel, not God, but thanks for the promotion. It’s a nice thought, even as powerless as it is.”

“Gabriel!” Sam’s warning tone has no effect on the Archangel, and Sam figures that isn’t a surprise. Still-- “You can’t do that! He really will kill us both. You said yourself that Castiel’s mojo isn’t up to speed, he can’t just snap clothes back on him--”

A pleased and satisfied look crosses Gabriel’s face. “Exactly. Don’t you think it’s about time that those two stop dancing around each other, and sending each other those incredible eyefucks?”

“I...I...” Sam stops and really thinks about it, then a big smile crosses his face. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

If possible, Gabriel looks even more pleased. “I knew you were a match for me. There’s certainly been ample evidence of it in the last day, the last few hours especially. Now I know for sure, though. No protests on your brother’s behalf; no arguments about meddling. Just simple agreement. Oh, I am looking forward to being on your team; of finding out all about you, Sam Winchester.”

Insecurity rears its ugly head, as it does so often when things seem too good to be true. “You might not like everything you learn.”

Gabriel smirks at him. “It would be pretty boring if I did. However, I’ve been watching you for several years now, so I doubt you have too many surprises for me. It’ll be fun finding them.”

Wanting to do something to shake Gabriel’s surety, Sam blurts out the first thing he’s sure the Archangel doesn’t know. “I know why Asmodeus’s power didn’t work on us last night.”

As soon as the words were spoken, Sam wishes he could take them back. He would have liked the time to explore what had been revealed on his own. From the quirk of Gabriel’s lips, Sam knows he isn’t going to get that time, now, and he has no one to blame but himself. “Do you now? You’re right; that is a surprise. What’s even more surprising is that you didn’t run for the hills.”

Sam tries to pass it off with a shrug. “I was a little...stuck...at the time.”

“Mmhmm, but you weren’t stuck when we got here. In fact, I offered to send you wherever you wanted to go.” With a predatory look, Gabriel starts crawling up the bed, working his way up Sam’s body. Snagging Sam’s hands, Gabriel pushes them above Sam’s head, and holds them there.

Reflexively, Sam tries to jerk his hands up, but they don’t budge. He puts some effort into it, and he still doesn’t move. Being held down so completely doesn’t feel anything like it had last night. There is no feeling of being trapped. In fact, a thrill goes through Sam’s body, and he licks suddenly dry lips in anticipation.

At first, Gabriel just looks down at him, searching his eyes. “You aren’t running now, either. Do you want to?”

Slowly, but decisively, Sam shakes his head. “No, I’m sticking this out. I...want to play it out to the end, find out what it means, and what it might change.”

Tightening his hands on Sam’s wrists, Gabriel grins down at him fiercely. “Then let the future begin.”

Raising his head to meet Gabriel’s, Sam doesn’t bother to reply with words. He just opens when Gabriel melds their mouths together.


End file.
